Jl^icljolson 


THE   POET.     Illustrated. 

OTHERWISE  PHYLLIS.  With  frontispiece  in  color. 

THE     PROVINCIAL    AMERICAN     AND     OTHER 

PAPERS. 

A  HOOSIER  CHRONICLE.     With  illustrations. 
THE   SIEGE  OF  THE   SEVEN    SUITORS.     With 

illustrations. 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 


THE  POET 


POOR    MARJOKIE 


:E  POEI 


MEREDITH  NICHOLSON 


WITH    PICTURES    BY    FRAXKLIX    BOOTH 
AXD   DECORATIONS  BY  W.  A.  DWIGGIXS 


BOSTON    AND    NEW   YOEK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

fttterstbe  Sresii  Cambribje 


COPYRIGHT,   1914,   BY   MEREDITH   NICHOLSON 
ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  October  1914 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

"PooR  MARJORIE!"    (Page  3)    .       .       .  Frontispiece 
"EVERY  TRIFLING  THING   HAD  TO  BE  ARGUED".     74 

THE   APPROACHING   CANOE 110 

"ELIZABETH!"    ...  .  188 


2018888 


PART  ONE 

i 

"  THE  lonesomeness  of  that  little  girl  over 
there  is  becoming  painful,"  said  the  Poet  from 
his  chair  by  the  hedge.  "I  can't  make  out 
whether  she 's  too  dressed  up  to  play  or 
whether  it 's  only  shyness." 

"Poor  Marjorie!"  murmured  Mrs.  Waring. 
"We  've  all  coaxed  her  to  play,  but  she  won't 
budge.  By  the  way,  that 's  one  of  the  saddest 
cases  we ' ve  had ;  it 's  heartbreaking,  discourag- 
ing. Little  waifs  like  Marjorie,  whose  fathers 


and  mothers  can't  hit  it  off,  don't  have  a  fair 
chance,  —  they  are  handicapped  from  the 
start.  —  Oh,  I  thought  you  knew;  that's  the 
Redfields'  little  girl." 

The  Poet  gazed  with  a  new  intentness  at  the 
dark-haired  child  of  five  who  stood  rigidly  at 
the  end  of  the  pergola  with  her  hands  clasped 
behind  her  back.  The  Poet  All  the  People 
Loved  was  a  philosopher  also,  but  his  philoso- 
phy was  not  quite  equal  to  forecasting  the  des- 
tiny of  little  Marjorie. 

"  Children,"  he  observed,  "  should  not  be  left 
on  the  temple  steps  when  the  pillars  of  society 
crack  and  rock;  the  good  fairies  ought  to  carry 
them  out  of  harm's  way.  Little  Marjorie  looks 
as  though  she  had  never  smiled."  And  then  he 
murmured  with  characteristic  self -mockery, — 

"  Oh,  little  child  that  never  smiled  — 

Somebody  might  build  a  poem  around  that 

line,  but  I  hope  nobody  ever  will!  If  that  child 

[    4    ] 


does  n't  stop  looking  that  way,  I  shall  have  to 
cry  or  crawl  over  there  on  my  knees  and  ride 
her  pickaback." 

Mrs.  Waring's  two  daughters  had  been  lead- 
ing the  children  in  a  march  and  dance  that  now 
broke  up  in  a  romp;  and  the  garden  echoed 
with  gleeful  laughter.  The  spell  of  restraint 
was  broken,  and  the  children  began  initiating 
games  of  their  own  choosing;  but  Marjorie 
stood  stolidly  gazing  at  them  as  though  they 
were  of  another  species.  Her  nurse,  having 
failed  to  interest  her  sad-eyed  charge  in  the 
games  that  were  delighting  the  other  children, 
had  withdrawn,  leaving  Marjorie  to  her  own 
devices. 

"She's  always  like  that,"  the  girl  explained 
with  resignation,  "and  you  can't  do  anything 
with  her." 

A  tall,  fair  girl  appeared  suddenly  at  the 
garden  entrance.  The  abrupt  manner  of  her 
coming,  the  alert  poise  of  her  figure,  as  though 

t   5    1 


she  had  been"  arrested  in  flight  and  had  paused 
only  for  breath  before  winging  farther,  inter- 
ested the  Poet  at  once. 

She  stood  there  as  unconscious  as  though 
she  were  the  first  woman,  and  against  the 
white  gate  of  the  garden  was  imaginably  of 
kin  to  the  bright  goddesses  of  legend.  She 
was  hat  less,  and  the  Poet  was  grateful  for  this, 
for  a  hat,  he  reflected,  should  never  weigh  upon 
a  head  so  charming,  so  lifted  as  though  with 
courage  and  hope,  and  faith  in  the  promise  of 
life.  A  tennis  racket  held  in  the  hollow  of  her 
arm  explained  her  glowing  color.  Essentially 
American,  he  reflected,  this  young  woman, 
and  worthy  to  stand  as  a  type  in  his  thronging 
gallery.  She  so  satisfied  the  eye  in  that  hesitat- 
ing moment  that  the  Poet  shrugged  his  shoul- 
ders impatiently  when  she  threw  aside  the 
racket  and  bounded  across  the  lawn,  darting 
in  and  out  among  the  children,  laughingly 
eluding  small  hands  thrust  out  to  catch  her, 

[    6    1 


and  then  dropped  on  her  knees  before  Marjorie. 
She  caught  the  child's  hands,  laughed  into  the 
sad  little  face,  holding  herself  away  so  that  the 
homesick,  bewildered  heart  might  have  time 
to  adjust  itself,  and  then  Marjorie's  arms 
clasped  her  neck  tightly,  and  the  dark  head 
lay  close  to  the  golden  one. 

There  was  a  moment's  parley,  begun  in 
tears  and  ending  in  laughter;  and  then  Marian 
tripped  away  with  Marjorie,  and  joined  with 
her  in  the  mazes  of  a  dance  that  enmeshed  the 
whole  company  of  children  in  bright  ribbons 
and  then  freed  them  again.  The  Poet,  beating 
time  to  the  music  with  his  hat,  wished  that 
Herrick  might  have  been  there;  it  was  his 
habit  to  think,  when  something  pleased  him 
particularly,  that  "Keats  would  have  liked 
that!"  —  "Shelley  would  have  made  a  golden 
line  of  this!"  He  felt  songs  beating  with  eager 
wings  at  the  door  of  his  own  heart  as  his 
glance  followed  the  fair  girl  who  had  so  easily 
[  7  ] 


turned  a  child's  tears  to  laughter.  For  Mar- 
jorie  was  laughing  with  the  rest  now;  in  ten 
minutes  she  was  one  of  them  —  had  found 
friends  and  seemed  not  to  mind  at  all  when  her 
good  angel  dropped  out  to  become  a  spectator 
of  her  happiness. 

"I  have  saved  my  trousers,"  remarked  the 
Poet  to  Mrs.  Waring,  who  had  watched  the 
transformation  in  silence;  "but  that  girl  has 
spoiled  her  frock  kneeling  to  Marjorie.  I  sup- 
pose I  could  n't  with  delicacy  offer  to  reim- 
burse her  for  the  damage.  If  there  were  any 
sort  of  gallantry  in  me  I  would  have  sacrificed 
myself,  and  probably  have  scared  Marjorie  to 
death.  If  a  child  should  put  its  arms  around  me 
that  way  and  cry  on  my  shoulder  and  then  run 
off  and  play,  I  should  be  glad  to  endow  laundries 
to  the  limit  of  my  bank  account.  If  the  Diana 
who  rescued  Marjorie  has  another  name  — " 

"I  thought    you    knew!     That's    Marian 
Agnew,  Marjorie's  aunt." 
[    8    ] 


"I  Ve  read  of  her  in  many  books,"  said  the 
Poet  musingly,  "  but  she  's  an  elusive  person. 
I  might  have  known  that  if  I  would  sit  in  a 
pleasant  garden  like  this  in  June  and  watch 
children  at  play,  something  beautiful  would 
pass  this  way." 

Mrs.  Waring  glanced  at  him  quickly,  as 
people  usually  did  to  make  sure  he  was  not 
trifling  with  them. 

"You  really  seem  interested  in  the  way  she 
hypnotized  Marjorie !  Well,  to  be  quite  honest, 
I  sent  for  her  to  come !  She  was  playing  tennis 
a  little  farther  up  the  street,  but  she  came  run- 
ning when  I  sent  word  that  Marjorie  was  here 
and  that  we  had  all  given  her  up  in  despair." 

"My  first  impression  was  that  she  had 
dropped  down  from  heaven  or  had  run  away 
from  Olympus.  Please  don't  ask  me  to  say 
which  I  think  likelier!" 

"I'm  sorry  to  spoil  an  illusion,  but  after  all 
Marian  is  one  of  the  daughters  of  men;  though 

[    9    1 


I  remember  that  when  she  was  ten  she  told  me 
in  solemn  confidence  that  she  believed  in  fairies, 
because  she  had  seen  them — an  excellent  rea- 
son! She  graduated  from  Vassar  last  year,  and 
I  have  an  idea  that  college  may  have  shaken 
her  faith  in  fairies.  She 's  going  to  begin  teach- 
ing school  next  fall, —  she  has  to  do  something, 
you  know.  She's  an  eminently  practical  per- 
son, blessed  with  a  sound  appetite,  and  she 
can  climb  a  rope,  and  swim  and  play  tennis  all 
day." 

"The  Olympians  ate  three  meals  a  day,  I 
imagine;  and  we  should  n't  begrudge  this  fair- 
haired  Marian  her  daily  bread  and  butter. 
Let  me  see;  she's  Marjorie's  aunt;  and  Mar- 
jorie's  father  is  Miles  Redfield.  I  know  Red- 
field  well;  his  wife  was  Elizabeth  Agnew.  I 
saw  a  good  deal  of  them  in  their  early  married 
days.  They  've  agreed  to  quit  —  is  that  the 
way  of  it?  " 

"How  fortunate  you  are  that  people  don't 

[  10  ] 


tell  you  gossip !  I  suppose  it 's  one  of  the  re- 
wards of  being  a  poet!  The  whole  town  has 
been  upset  by  the  Redfields'  troubles ;  —  they 
have  separated.  I  've  sent  Elizabeth  up  to 
Waupegan  to  open  my  house  —  made  an  ex- 
cuse to  get  her  away.  Marjorie's  with  her 
grandmother,  waiting  for  the  courts  to  do  some- 
thing about  it;  —  as  though  courts  could  do 
anything  about  such  cases!"  she  ended  with 
feeling. 

The  Poet,  searching  for  Marjorie  in  the 
throng  of  children,  made  no  reply. 

"You  are  a  poet,"  Mrs.  Waring  resumed 
tauntingly,  with  the  privilege  of  old  friend- 
ship, "  and  have  a  reputation  for  knowing  the 
human  heart.  Why  can't  you  do  something 
about  the  Redfields'  troubles  ?  —  there  's  a  fine 
chance  for  you!  It  begins  to  look  as  though 
sentiment,  romance,  love — all  those  things  you 
poets  have  been  writing  about  for  thousands  of 
years  —  have  gone  out  with  the  old-fashioned 


roses.  I  confess  that  it 's  because  I  'm  afraid 
that 's  true  that  I  'm  clinging  to  all  the  flowers 
my  grandmother  used  to  love — and  I'm  nearly 
seventy  and  a  grandmother  myself." 

She  was  still  a  handsome  woman,  and  the 
Poet's  eyes  followed  her  admiringly  as  she 
crossed  the  lawn,  leaving  him  to  find  an  an- 
swer to  her  question.  In  the  days  of  his  begin- 
nings she  had  been  his  steadfast  friend,  and  he 
was  fond  of  telling  her  that  he  had  learned  the 
kindliness  and  cheer  he  put  into  his  poems 
from  her. 

She  and  her  assistants  were  marshaling  the 
children  for  refreshments  under  a  canopy  at 
the  farther  corner  of  the  garden,  and  the  ani- 
mated scene  delighted  and  charmed  him.  He 
liked  thus  to  sit  apart  and  observe  phases  of 
life,  —  and  best  of  all  he  loved  scenes  like  this 
that  were  brightened  by  the  presence  of  chil- 
dren. He  was  a  bachelor,  but  the  world's  chil- 
dren were  his ;  and  he  studied  them,  loved  them, 

[    12    1 


wrote  for  them  and  of  them.  He  was  quite 
alone,  as  he  liked  to  be  often,  pondering  the 
misfortunes  of  the  Redfields  as  lightly  limned 
by  Mrs.  Waring.  Little  Marjorie,  as  she  had 
stood  forlornly  against  the  pergola,  haunted 
him  still  in  spite  of  her  capitulation  to  the 
charms  of  her  Aunt  Marian.  He  knew  per- 
fectly well  that  Mrs.  Waring  had  n't  meant 
what  she  said  in  her  fling  about  the  passing  of 
poetry  and  romance;  she  was  the  last  woman 
in  the  world  to  utter  such  sentiments  seriously; 
but  he  was  aware  that  many  people  believed 
them  to  be  true. 

Every  day  the  postman  brought  him  letters 
in  dismaying  numbers  from  people  of  all  sorts 
and  conditions  who  testified  to  the  validity  of 
his  message.  The  most  modest  of  men,  he 
found  it  difficult  to  understand  how  he  reached 
so  many  hearts;  he  refused  to  believe  himself, 
what  some  essayist  had  called  him,  "a  lone 
piper  in  the  twilight  of  the  poets."  With  ma- 

r  is  i 


turity  his  attitude  toward  his  own  genius  had 
changed;  and  under  his  joy  in  the  song  for  the 
song's  sake  was  a  deep,  serious  feeling  of  re- 
sponsibility. It  was  a  high  privilege  to  com- 
fort and  uplift  so  many;  and  if  he  were,  indeed, 
one  of  the  apostolic  line  of  poets,  he  must  have 
a  care  to  keep  his  altar  clean  and  bright  for 
those  who  should  come  after  him. 

He  was  so  deep  in  thought  that  he  failed  to 
observe  Marian  advancing  toward  him. 

"If  you  please,  I  have  brought  you  an  ice, 
and  there  will  be  cake  and  bonbons,"  said  the 
girl.  "And  Mrs.  Waring  said  if  you  did  n't 
mind  I  might  sit  and  talk  to  you." 

"You  should  be  careful,"  said  the  Poet, 
taking  the  plate,  "about  frightening  timid  men 
to  death.  I  was  thinking  about  you  so  hard 
that  my  watch  and  my  heart  both  stopped 
when  you  spoke  to  me." 

"And  this,"  exclaimed  the  girl,  "from  the 
poet  of  gracious  words!  I've  been  told  that 

[    14    ] 


I'm  rather  unexpected  and  generally  annoy- 
ing, but  I  did  n't  know  I  was  so  bad  as 
that!" 

"Then  let  us  begin  all  over  again,"  said  the 
Poet.  "Mrs.  Waring  told  me  your  name  and 
gave  you  a  high  reputation  as  an  athlete,  and 
spoke  feelingly  of  your  appetite.  It 's  only  fair 
to  give  you  a  chance  to  speak  for  yourself.  So 
kindly  begin  by  telling  me  about  Marjorie  and 
why  she 's  so  forlorn,  and  just  what  you  said 
to  her  a  while  ago!" 

The  color  deepened  in  the  girl's  face.  It  was 
disconcerting  to  be  sitting  beside  the  Poet  All 
the  People  Loved  and  to  be  talking  to  him  for 
the  first  time  in  her  life;  but  to  have  him  ask 
a  question  of  so  many  obscure  connotations, 
touching  upon  so  many  matters  that  were  best 
left  to  whispering  gossips,  quite  took  her  breath 
away. 

"Not  a  word  that  I  can  remember,"  she 
answered;  "but  Marjorie  said,  'Take  me 

[    15    ] 


home!* — and  after  she  had  cried  a  little  she 
felt  better  and  was  glad  to  play." 

"Of  course  that's  only  the  most  superficial 
and  modest  account  of  the  incident,"  the  Poet 
replied;  "but  I  can't  blame  you  for  not  telling. 
If  I  knew  how  to  do  what  you  did,  I  should 
very  likely  keep  the  secret.  Another  case  of 
the  flower  in  the  crannied  wall,  — 

Little  flower  —  but  if  I  could  understand 
What  you  are,  root  and  all,  and  all  in  all, 
I  should  know  what  God  and  man  is! " 

"You  give  me  far  too  much  credit,"  the  girl 
responded  gravely.  "It  was  merely  a  matter 
of  my  knowing  Marjorie  better  than  any  one 
else  at  the  party;  I  had  n't  known  she  was 
coming  or  I  should  have  brought  her  my- 
self." 

"I  thought  you  would  say  something  like 
that,"  the  Poet  observed,  "and  that  is  why  I 
liked  you  before  you  said  it." 

She  looked  at  him  with  the  frank  curiosity 

f    16    ] 


aroused  by  her  nearness  to  a  celebrity.  Now 
that  the  first  little  heartache  over  the  mention 
of  Marjorie  had  passed,  she  found  herself  quite 
at  ease  with  him. 

"My  feelings  have  been  hurt,"  he  was  say- 
ing. "Oh,  nobody  has  told  me  —  at  least  not 
to-day  —  that  I  am  growing  old,  or  that  it's 
silly  to  carry  an  umbrella  on  bright  days !  It 's 
much  worse  than  that." 

Sympathy  spoke  in  her  face  and  from  the 
tranquil  depths  of  her  violet  eyes. 

"I  shall  hate  whoever  said  it,  forever  and 
forever!"  she  averred. 

"Oh,  no!  That  would  be  a  very  serious  mis- 
take! The  person  who  hurt  my  feelings  is  the 
nicest  possible  person  and  one  of  my  best 
friends.  So  many  people  are  saying  the  same 
thing  that  we  need  n't  ascribe  it  to  any  indi- 
vidual. Let  us  assume  that  I  've  been  hurt  by 
many  people,  who  say  that  romance  and  old- 
fashioned  roses  are  not  what  they  were;  that 
[  17  ] 


such  poetry  as  we  have  nowadays  is  n't  of  any 
use,  and  that  we  are  all  left  floundering  here 

As  on  a  darkling  plain, 

Swept  with  confused  alarms  of  struggle  and  flight, 
Where  ignorant  armies  clash  by  night. 

I  want  you  to  tell  me,  honestly  and  truly, 
whether  you  really  believe  that." 

He  was  more  eager  for  her  reply  than  she 
knew;  and  when  it  was  not  immediately  forth- 
coming a  troubled  look  stole  into  his  face.  The 
readiness  of  the  poetic  temperament  to  ideal- 
ize had  betrayed  him  for  once,  at  least,  and  he 
felt  his  disappointments  deeply.  The  laughter 
of  the  children  floated  fitfully  from  the  corner 
of  the  garden  where  they  were  arraying  them- 
selves in  the  tissue  caps  that  had  been  hidden 
in  their  bonbons.  A  robin,  wondering  at  all 
the  merriment,  piped  cheerily  from  a  tall 
maple,  and  a  jay,  braving  the  perils  of  urban 
life,  winged  over  the  garden  with  a  flash  of 
blue.  The  gleeful  echoes  from  the  bright  can- 

[    18    ] 


opy,  the  bird  calls,  the  tender  green  of  the  foli- 
age, the  scents  and  sounds  of  early  summer 
all  spoke  for  happiness;  and  yet  Marian  Agnew 
withheld  the  reply  on  which  he  had  counted. 
She  still  delayed  as  though  waiting  for  the 
robin  to  cease;  and  when  a  flutter  of  wings 
announced  his  departure,  she  began  irreso- 
lutely:- 

"I  wish  I  could  say  no,  and  I  can't  tell  you 
how  sorry  I  am  to  disappoint  you  — you,  of  all 
men !  I  know  you  would  n't  want  me  to  be 
dishonest  —  to  make  the  answer  you  expected 
merely  to  please  you.  Please  forgive  me!  but 
I  'm  not  sure  I  think  as  you  do  about  life.  If  I 
had  never  known  trouble  —  if  I  did  n't  know 
that  faith  and  love  can  die,  then  I  should  n't 
hesitate.  But  I  'm  one  of  the  doubting  ones." 

"I  'm  sorry,"  said  the  Poet;  "but  we  may 

as  well  assume  that  we  are  old  friends  and  be 

frank.    Please  believe  that  I'm  not  bothering 

you  in  this  way  without  a  purpose.   I  think  I 

[    19    ] 


know  what  has  obscured  the  light  for  you.  You 
are  thinking  of  your  sister's  troubles;  and  when 
I  asked  you  what  sorcery  you  had  exercised 
upon  little  Marjorie,  you  knew  her  mother  had 
been  in  my  mind.  That  is  n't,  of  course,  any 
of  my  affair,  in  one  sense;  but  in  another  sense 
it  is.  For  one  thing,  I  knew  your  sister  when 
she  was  a  girl  —  which  was  n't  very  long  ago. 
And  I  know  the  man  she  married;  and  there 
was  never  any  marriage  that  promised  so  well 
as  that !  And  for  another  thing,  I  don't  like  to 
think  that  we've  cut  all  the  old  moorings;  that 
the  anchorages  of  life,  that  were  safe  enough 
in  old  times,  snap  nowadays  in  any  passing 
gust.  The  very  thought  of  it  makes  me  un- 
comfortable! You  are  not  fair  to  yourself 
when  you  allow  other  people's  troubles  to 
darken  your  own  outlook.  When  you  stood 
over  there  at  the  gate,  I  called  the  roll  of  all  the 
divinities  of  light  and  sweetness  and  charm  to 
find  a  name  for  you;  when  you  ran  to  Marjorie 

[  20  ] 


and  won  her  back  to  happiness  so  quickly,  I 
was  glad  that  these  are  not  the  old  times  of 
fauns  and  dryads,  but  that  you  are  very  real, 
and  a  healthy-minded  American  girl,  seeing 
life  quite  steadily  and  whole." 

"Oh,  but  I  don't;  I  can't!"  she  faltered; 
"and  doesn't — doesn't  the  mistake  you 
made  about  me  prove  that  what  poets  see  and 
feel  is  n't  reality,  is  n't  life  as  it  really  is?" 

"I  object,"  said  the  Poet  with  a  humorous 
twinkle,  "to  any  such  sacrifice  of  yourself  to 
support  the  wail  of  the  pessimists.  I  positively 
refuse  to  sanction  anything  so  sacrilegious!" 

"I'm  not  terribly  old,"  she  went  on,  ignor- 
ing his  effort  to  give  a  lighter  tone  to  the  talk; 
"and  I  don't  pretend  to  be  wise;  but  life  can't 
be  just  dreams  and  flowers:  I  see  that!  I  wish 
it  were  that  way,  for  everything  would  be 
so  simple  and  easy  and  every  one  would  live 
happy  ever  after." 

"I'm  afraid  that  is  n't  quite  true,"  said  the 

[    21    ] 


Poet.  "I  can't  think  of  anything  more  dis- 
agreeable than  half  an  hour  spent  in  a  big  hot- 
house full  of  roses.  I've  made  the  experiment 
occasionally;  and  if  all  creation  lived  in  such  an 
atmosphere,  we  should  be  a  pale,  stifled,  anae- 
mic race.  And  think  of  the  stone-throwing 
there  would  be  if  we  all  lived  in  glass  houses!" 

She  smiled  at  this;  and  their  eyes  met  in  a 
look  that  marked  the  beginnings  of  a  friend- 
ship. 

"There's  Marjorie,  and  I  must  go!"  she 
cried  suddenly.  "Is  n't  she  quite  the  prettiest 
of  them  all  in  her  paper  cap !  We  have  n't 
really  decided  anything,  have  we?"  she  asked, 
lingering  a  moment.  "And  I  have  n't  even 
fed  you  very  well,  for  which  Mrs.  Waring  will 
scold  me.  But  I  hope  you  're  going  to  like  me 
a  little  bit  —  even  if  I  am  a  heathen!" 

"We  were  old  friends  when  the  stars  first 
sang  together !  Something  tells  me  that  I  shall 
see  you  soon  again — very  soon;  but  you  have 
[  22  ] 


not  got  rid  of  me  yet;  I  crave  the  honor  of 
an  introduction  to  Marjorie." 

In  a  moment  the  Poet  stood  with  Marjorie 
close  at  his  side,  her  hand  thrust  warmly  and 
contentedly  into  his,  while  all  the  other  chil- 
dren pressed  close  about.  He  was  telling  them 
one  of  the  stories  in  rhyme  for  which  he  was 
famous,  and  telling  it  with  an  art  that  was  not 
less  a  gift  from  Heaven  than  the  genius  that 
had  put  the  words  into  his  ink-pot.  Thousands 
of  children  had  heard  that  poem  at  their 
mothers'  knees,  but  to-day  it  seemed  new, 
even  to  those  of  the  attentive  young  auditors 
whose  lips  moved  with  his,  repeating  the 
quaint,  whimsical  phrases  and  musical  lines 
that  seem,  indeed,  to  be  the  spontaneous  crea- 
tion of  any  child  who  lisps  them. 

And  when  he  began  to  retreat,  followed  by 

the   clamorous  company   with   demands  for 

more,  he  slipped  away  through  the  low  garden 

gate,  leaned  upon  it  and  looked  down  upon 

[    23    ] 


them  with  feigned  surprise  as  though  he  had 
never  seen  them  before. 

"How  remarkable!"  he  exclaimed,  linger- 
ing to  parley  with  them.  "Tell  you  another 
story!  Who  has  been  telling  stories!  I  just 
stopped  to  look  at  the  garden  and  all  the 
flowers  jumped  up  and  became  children  —  chil- 
dren calling  for  stories !  How  very  remarkable ! 
And  all  the  brown-eyed  children  are  pansies  and 
all  the  blue-eyed  ones  are  roses,  —  really  this 
is  the  most  remarkable  thing  I  ever  heard  of!" 

They  drew  closer  as  he  whispered :  — 

"You  must  do  just  what  I  tell  you  —  will 
you  promise,  every  single  boy  and  girl?" 

They  pressed  nearer,  presenting  a  compact 
semicircle  of  awed  faces,  and  nodded  eagerly. 
An  older  boy  giggled  in  excess  of  joy  and  in  an- 
ticipation of  what  was  to  come,  and  his  neigh- 
bors rebuked  him  with  frowns. 

"Now,  when  I  say  'one,'  begin  to  count,  and 
count  ten  slowly  —  oh,  very  slowly;  and  then, 


when  everybody  has  counted,  everybody  stand 
on  one  foot  with  eyes  shut  tight  and  hop 
around  real  quick  and  look  at  the  back  wall  of 
the  garden  —  there's  a  robin  sitting  there  at 
this  very  minute;  —  but  don't  look.  Nobody 
must  look  —  yet!  And  when  you  open  your 
eyes  there  will  be  a  fairy  in  a  linen  duster  and 
a  cocked  hat;  that  is,  maybe  you'll  see  him! 
Now  shut  your  eyes  and  count  —  one!" 

When  they  swung  round  to  take  him  to  task 
for  this  duplicity,  he  had  reached  the  street  and 
was  waving  his  hand  to  them. 

n 

UNDER  the  maples  that  arched  the  long 
street  the  Poet  walked  homeward,  pondering 
the  afternoon's  adventures.  His  encounter 
with  the  children  had  sent  him  away  from 
Mrs.  Waring' s  garden  in  a  happy  mood.  Down 
the  long  aisle  of  trees  the  tall  shaft  of  the  sol- 
diers' monument  rose  before  him.  He  had 
[  25  ] 


watched  its  building,  and  the  memories  that 
had  gone  to  its  making  had  spoken  to  his  im- 
agination with  singular  poignancy .  It  expressed 
the  high  altitudes  of  aspiration  and  endeavor 
of  his  own  people;  for  the  gray  shaft  was  not 
merely  the  center  of  his  city,  the  teeming, 
earnest  capital  of  his  State;  but  his  name  and 
fame  were  inseparably  linked  to  it.  He  had 
found  within  an  hour's  journey  of  the  monu- 
ment the  material  for  a  thousand  poems.  As  a 
boy  he  had  ranged  the  near-by  fields  and  fol- 
lowed, like  a  young  Columbus,  innumerable 
creeks  and  rivers;  he  had  learned  and  stored 
away  the  country  lore  and  the  country  faith, 
and  fixed  in  his  mind  unconsciously  the  homely 
speech  in  which  he  was  to  express  these  things 
later  as  one  having  authority.  So  profitably 
had  he  occupied  his  childhood  and  youth  that 
years  spent  on  "paven  ground"  had  not 
dimmed  the  freshness  of  those  memories.  It 
seemed  that  by  some  magic  he  was  able  to  cause 
[  26  ] 


the  springs  he  had  known  in  youth  (and  springs 
are  dear  to  youth!)  to  bubble  anew  in  the 
crowded  haunts  of  men;  and  urban  scenes  never 
obscured  for  him  the  labors  and  incidents  of  the 
farm.  He  had  played  upon  the  theme  of  home 
with  endless  variations,  and  never  were  songs 
honester  than  these.  The  home  round  which 
he  had  flung  his  defense  of  song  domiciled  folk 
of  simple  aims  and  kindly  mirth;  he  had  estab- 
lished them  as  a  type,  written  them  down  in 
their  simple  dialect  that  has  the  tang  of  wild 
persimmons,  the  mellow  flavor  of  the  paw- 
paw. 

He  turned  into  the  quiet  street  from  which 
for  many  years  he  had  sent  his  songs  wing- 
ing, —  an  absurdly  inaccessible  and  delightful 
street  that  baffled  all  seekers,  = —  that  had  to 
be  rediscovered  with  each  visit  by  the  Poet's 
friends.  Not  only  was  its  seclusion  dear  to 
him;  but  the  difficulties  experienced  by  his 
visitors  in  finding  it  tickled  his  humor.  It  was 
[  27  ] 


pleasant  to  be  tucked  away  in  a  street  that 
never  was  in  danger  of  precipitating  one  into 
the  market-place,  and  in  a  house  set  higher 
than  its  neighbors  and  protected  by  an  iron 
fence  and  a  gate  whose  chain  one  must  fumble 
a  moment  before  gaining  access  to  the  whitest 
of  stone  steps,  and  the  quaint  door  that  had 
hospitably  opened  to  so  many  of  the  good  and 
great  of  all  lands. 

There  was  a  visitor  waiting  —  a  young  man 
who  explained  himself  diffidently  and  seemed 
taken  aback  by  the  cordiality  with  which  the 
Poet  greeted  him. 

"Frederick  Fulton,"  repeated  the  Poet, 
waving  his  hand  toward  a  chair.  "You  are  not 
the  young  man  who  sent  me  a  manuscript  to 
read  last  summer,  —  and  very  long  it  was, 
indeed,  a  poetic  drama,  'The  Soul  of  Eros/ 
Nor  the  one  who  wrote  an  ode  in  hexameters 
'To  the  Spirit  of  Shelley/  nor  yet  the  other  one 
who  seemed  bent  on  doing  Omar  Khayyam 
[  28  ] 


over  again  —  *  Verses  from  Persian  Sources' 
he  called  it.  You  need  n't  bother  to  repudiate 
those  efforts;  I  have  seen  your  name  in  the 
*  Chronicle '  tacked  to  very  good  things  —  very 
good,  and  very  American.  Yes,  I  recall  half  a 
dozen  pieces  under  one  heading  —  '  Songs  of 
Journeys'  End'  —  and  good  work  — excellent! 
I  suppose  they  were  all  refused  by  magazines 
or  you  would  n't  have  chucked  them  into  a 
Sunday  supplement.  Oh,  don't  jump!  I'm 
not  a  mind  reader  —  it 's  only  that  I  've  been 
through  all  that  myself." 

"Not  lately,  though,  of  course,"  Fulton  re- 
marked, with  the  laugh  that  the  Poet's  smile 
invited. 

"Not  so  lately,  but  they  sent  me  back  so 
much  when  I  was  young,  and  even  after  I  was 
n't  so  young,  that  the  account  is  n't  balanced 
yet !  There  are  things  in  those  verses  of  yours 
that  I  remember  —  they  were  very  delicate, 
and  beautifully  put  together,  —  cobwebs  with 
[  29  ] 


dew  clinging  to  them.  I  impudently  asked 
about  you  at  the  office  to  make  sure  there 
really  was  a  Frederick  Fulton. " 

"That  was  kind  and  generous;  I  heard  about 
it,  and  that  emboldened  me  to  come  and  see 
you  —  without  any  manuscript  in  my  pocket ! " 

"I  should  like  another  handful  like  those 
'Journeys'  End'  pieces.  There  was  a  rare  sort 
of  joy  in  them,  exultance,  ardor.  You  had  a 
line  beginning  — 

'If  love  should  wait  for  May  to  come  — ' 

that  was  like  a  bubble  tossed  into  the  air, 
quivering  with  life  and  flashing  all  manner  of 
colors.  And  there  was  something  about  swal- 
lows darting  down  from  the  bank  and  skim- 
ming over  the  creek  to  cool  their  wings  on  the 
water.  I  liked  that !  I  can  see  that  you  were 
a  country  boy;  we  learned  the  alphabet  out  of 
the  same  primer!" 

"I  have    done  my  share  of    ploughing," 
[    30    ] 


Fulton  remarked  a  little  later,  after  volunteer- 
ing the  few  facts  of  his  biography.  "There  are 
lots  of  things  about  corn  that  haven't  been 
put  into  rhyme  just  right;  the  smell  of  the  up- 
turned earth,  and  the  whisper  and  glisten  of 
young  leaves;  the  sweating  horses  as  the  sun 
climbs  to  the  top,  and  the  lonesome  rumble  of  a 
wagon  in  the  road,  and  the  little  cloud  of  dust 
that  follows  and  drifts  after  it." 

"And  little  sister  in  a  pink  sunbonnet  strolls 
down  the  lane  with  a  jug  of  buttermilk  about 
the  time  you  begin  to  feel  that  Pharaoh  has 
given  you  the  hardest  job  in  his  brickyard !  I  Ve 
never  had  those  experiences  but"  —  the  Poet 
laughed  —  "I  Ve  sat  on  the  fence  and  watched 
other  boys  do  it;  so  you're  just  that  much 
richer  than  I  am  by  your  experience.  But  we 
must  be  careful,  though,  or  some  evil  spirit 
will  come  down  the  chimney  and  tell  us  we  're 
not  academic !  I  suppose  we  ought  to  be  thresh- 
ing out  old  straw  —  you  and  I  —  writing  of 
[  31  ] 


English  skylarks  and  the  gorse  and  the  yew 
and  nightingales,  instead  of  what  we  see  out  of 
the  window,  here  at  home.  How  absurd  of  us ! 
A  scientist  would  be  caught  up  quick  enough  if 
he  wrote  of  something  he  knew  nothing  about 

—  if,  for  example,  an  astronomer  ventured  to 
write  an  essay  about  the  starfish;  and  yet  there 
are  critics  who  sniff  at  such  poetry  as  yours  and 
mine"  —  Fulton  felt  that  the  laurel  had  been 
pressed  down  on  his  brows  by  this  correlation 

—  "because  it's  about  corn  and  stake-and- 
rider  fences  with  wild  roses  and  elderberry 
blooming  in  the  corners.  You  had  a  fine  poem 
about  the  kingfisher  —  and  I  suppose  it  would 
be  more  likely  to  impress  a  certain  type  of  aus- 
tere critics  if  you  'd  written  about  some  extinct 
bird  you  'd  seen  in  a  college  museum !  But,  dear 
me,  I'm  doing  all  the  talking!" 

"I  wish  you  would  do  much  more.   You've 
said  just  what  I  hoped  you  would;  in  fact,  I 
came  to-day  because  I  had  a  blue  day,  and  I 
[    32    ] 


needed  to  talk  to  some  one,  and  I  chose  you. 
I  know  perfectly  well  that  I  ought  really  to 
quit  bothering  my  head  about  rhyme.  I  get 
too  much  happiness  out  of  it ;  it 's  spoiling  me 
for  other  things." 

"Let's  have  all  the  story,  then,  if  you  really 
want  to  tell  me,"  said  the  Poet.  "  Most  people 
give  only  half  confidences,"  he  added. 

"I  went  into  newspaper  work  after  I'd 
farmed  my  way  through  college.  I've  been 
with  the  '  Chronicle '  three  years,  and  I  believe 
they  say  I  'm  a  good  reporter;  but  however  that 
may  be,  I  don't  see  my  way  very  far  ahead. 
Promotions  are  uncertain,  and  the  rewards  of 
journalism  at  best  are  not  great.  And  of  course 
I  have  n't  any  illusions  about  poetry  —  the 
kind  I  can  do!  I  could  n't  live  by  it !" 

He  ended  abruptly  with  an  air  of  throwing 
all  his  cards  on  the  table.  The  Poet  picked 
up  a  paper-cutter  and  began  idly  tapping  his 
knee  with  it. 

[    33    ] 


"How  do  you  know  you  can't!" 

It  was  an  exclamation  rather  than  a  ques- 
tion, and  he  smiled  at  the  blank  stare  with 
which  Fulton  received  it. 

"Oh,  I  mean  that  it  won't  pay  my  board  bill 
or  buy  clothes!  It  feeds  the  spirit,  maybe,  but 
that 's  all.  You  see,  I  'm  not  a  genius  like  you ! " 

"  We  will  pass  that  as  an  irrelevant  point  and 
one  you  'd  better  not  try  to  defend.  I  agree  with 
you  about  journalism,  so  we  need  n't  argue 
that.  But  scribbling  verses  has  taught  you 
some  things  —  the  knack  of  appraising  ma- 
terial —  quick  and  true  selection  —  and  the 
ability  to  write  clean  straight  prose,  so  you 
need  n't  be  ungrateful.  Very  likely  it  has  culti- 
vated your  sympathies,  broadened  your  knowl* 
edge  of  people,  shown  you  lights  and  shadows 
you  would  otherwise  have  missed.  These  are 
all  worth  while." 

"Yes,  I  appreciate  all  that;  but  for  the  long 
future  I  must  have  a  surer  refuge  than  the 
[  34  ] 


newspaper  office,  where  the  tenure  is  decidedly 
uncertain.  I  feel  that  I  ought  to  break  away 
pretty  soon.  I'm  twenty-six,  and  the  years 
count ;  and  I  want  to  make  the  best  use  of  them ; 
I'd  like  to  crowd  twenty  years  of  hard  work 
into  ten  and  then  be  free  to  lie  back  and  play  on 
my  little  tin  whistle,"  he  continued  earnestly. 
"  And  I  have  a  chance  to  go  into  business;  Mr. 
Redfield  has  offered  me  a  place  with  him;  he's 
the  broker,  you  know,  one  of  the  real  live  wires 
and  already  very  successful.  My  acquaintance 
with  people  all  over  the  State  suggested  the 
idea  that  I  might  make  myself  useful  to  him." 

The  Poet  dropped  the  paper-cutter,  and  per- 
mitted Fulton  to  grope  for  it  to  give  himself 
time  to  think. 

The  narrow  circumference  within  which  the 
game  of  life  is  played  had  always  had  for  the 
Poet  a  fascinating  interest;  and  he  read  into 
coincidences  all  manner  of  mysteries,  but  it  was 
nothing  short  of  startling  that  this  young  man, 
[  35  ] 


whom  he  had  never  seen  before,  should  have 
spoken  Miles  Redfield's  name  just  when  it  was 
in  his  own  mind. 

"I  know  Redfield  quite  well,"  he  said, 
"though  he's  much  younger  than  I  am.  I  un- 
derstand that  he's  prospering.  He  had  some- 
what your  own  problem  to  solve  not  so  very 
long  ago;  maybe  you  don't  know  that?" 

"No;  I  know  him  only  in  a  business  way;  he 
occasionally  has  news;  he's  been  in  some  im- 
portant deals  lately." 

"It's  odd,  but  he  came  to  me  a  dozen  years 
ago  and  talked  to  me  much  as  you  have  been 
talking.  Art,  not  poetry,  was  his  trouble.  He 
had  a  lot  of  talent  —  maybe  not  genius  but  un- 
deniable talent.  He  had  been  to  an  art  school 
and  made  a  fine  record,  and  this,  he  used  to  say 
jokingly,  fitted  him  for  a  bank  clerkship.  He 
has  a  practical  side,  and  most  of  the  year  could 
clean  up  his  day's  work  early  enough  to  save  a 
few  daylight  hours  for  himself.  There 's  a  pen- 
[  36  ] 


and-ink  sketch  of  me  just  behind  your  head 
that's  Miles's  work.  Yes;  it's  good;  and  he 
could  pluck  the  heart  out  of  a  landscape,  too; 
—  in  oils,  I  mean.  He  was  full  of  enthusiasm 
and  meant  to  go  far.  Then  he  struck  the  reefs 
of  discouragement  as  we  all  do,  and  gave  it  up; 
got  a  job  in  a  bank,  got  married  —  and  there 
you  are!" 

"It's  too  bad  about  his  domestic  affairs,'* 
Fulton  volunteered,  as  the  Poet  broke  off  with 
a  gesture  that  was  eloquent  with  vague  impli- 
cations. 

"He  seems  to  have  flung  aside  all  his  ideals 
with  his  crayons  and  brushes!"  exclaimed  the 
Poet  impatiently.  "Mind  you,  I  don't  blame 
him  for  abandoning  art;  I  always  have  an  idea 
that  those  who  grow  restless  over  their  early 
failures  and  quit  the  game  have  n't  heard  the 
call  very  clearly.  A  poet  named  McPhelim 
once  wrote  a  sonnet,  that  began  — 

'  All-lovely  Art,  stern  Labor's  fair-haired  child, — ' 
[    37    ] 


working  out  the  idea  that  we  must  serve  seven 
years  and  yet  seven  other  years  to  win  the 
crown.  We  might  almost  say  that  it's  an  end- 
less apprenticeship;  we  are  all  tyros  to  the 
end  of  the  chapter!" 

"It  must  be  the  gleam  we  follow  forever!" 
said  the  young  man.  "No  matter  how  slight 
the  spark  I  feel — I  want  to  feel  that  it's 
worth  following  if  I  never  come  in  sight  of  the 
Grail." 

It  was  not  the  way  of  the  Poet  to  become  too 
serious  even  in  matters  that  lay  nearest  his 
heart. 

"We  must  follow  the  firefly  even  though  it 
leads  us  into  bramble  patches  and  we  emerge 
on  the  other  side  with  our  hands  and  faces 
scratched!  It's  our  joke  on  a  world  that  re- 
gards us  with  suspicion  that,  when  we  wear  our 
singing  robes  into  the  great  labor  houses,  we  are 
really  more  practical  than  the  men  who  spend 
their  days  there.  I'm  making  that  statement 
[  38  ] 


in  confidence  to  you  as  a  comrade  and  brother; 
we  must  keep  our  conceit  to  ourselves;  but  it's 
true,  nevertheless.  The  question  at  issue  is 
whether  you  shall  break  with  the  '  Chronicle ' 
and  join  forces  with  Miles  Redfield;  and 
whether  doing  so  would  mean  inevitably  that 
you  must  bid  your  literary  ambitions  get  be- 
hind you,  Satan." 

Fulton  nodded. 

"  Of  course,"  he  said,  "there  have  been  many 
men  who  first  and  last  have  made  an  avoca- 
tion of  literature  and  looked  elsewhere  for  their 
daily  bread:  Lamb's  heart,  pressed  against  his 
desk  in  the  India  office,  was  true  to  literature 
in  spite  of  his  necessities.  And  poets  have  al- 
ways had  a  hard  time  of  it,  stealing  like  Villon, 
or  inspecting  schools,  like  Arnold,  or  teaching, 
like  Longfellow  and  Lowell;  they  have  usually 
paid  a  stiff  price  for  their  tickets  to  the  Elysian 
Fields." 

The  Poet  crossed  the  room,  glanced  at  the 
[  39  ] 


portrait  that  Redfield  had  made  of  him,  and 
then  leaned  against  the  white  marble  mantel. 

"  We  've  wandered  pretty  far  afield;  we  are 
talking  as  though  this  thing  we  call  art  were 
something  quite  detachable  —  something  we 
could  stand  off  and  look  at,  or  put  on  or  off  at 
will.  I  wonder  if  we  won't  reach  the  beginning 
—  or  the  end  —  of  the  furrow  we  're  scratching 
with  our  little  plough,  by  agreeing  that  it  must 
be  in  our  lives,  a  vital  part  of  us,  and  quite  in- 
separable from  the  thing  we  are!" 

"Yes;  to  those  of  high  consecration  —  to 
the  masters!  But  you  are  carrying  the  banner 
too  high;  my  lungs  were  n't  made  for  that 
clearer  ether  and  diviner  air." 

"Let  us  consider  that,  then,"  said  the  Poet, 
finding  a  new  seat  by  the  window.  "I  have 
known  and  loved  half  a  dozen  men  who  have 
painted,  —  we  will  take  painters,  to  get  away 
from  our  own  shop,  —  and  have  passed  the 
meridian  and  kept  on  painting  without  gaining 
[  40  ] 


any  considerable  success  as  men  measure  it; 
never  winning  much  more  than  local  reputa- 
tion. They  have  done  pot-boilers  with  their 
left  hands,  and  not  grumbled.  They  've  found 
the  picking  pretty  lean,  too,  and  their  lives 
have  been  one  long  sacrifice.  They've  had  to 
watch  in  some  instances  men  of  meaner  aims 
win  the  handful  of  silver  and  the  ribbon  to 
wear  in  their  coats ;  but  they ' ve  gone  on  smil- 
ingly; they  are  like  acolytes  who  light  tapers 
and  sing  chants  without  ever  being  summoned 
to  higher  service  at  the  altar  —  who  would 
scruple  to  lay  their  hands  on  it!" 

"They,  of  course,  are  the  real  thing!"  Ful- 
ton exclaimed  fervently,  "and  there  are  scores 
of  such  men  and  women.  They  are  amateurs 
in  the  true  sense.  I  know  some  of  them,  and  I 
take  off  my  hat  to  them!" 

"I  get  down  on  my  knees  to  them,"  said  the 
Poet  with  deep  feeling.  "Success  is  far  from 
spelling  greatness;  it  takes  a  great  soul  to  find 


success  and  happiness  in  defeat.  You  will  have 
to  elect  whether  you  will  take  your  chances 
with  the  kind  of  men  I  Ve  mentioned  or  delve 
where  the  returns  are  surer;  and  that's  a  deci- 
sion you  will  have  to  make  for  yourself.  All  I 
can  do  is  to  suggest  points  for  consideration. 
Quite  honestly  I  will  say  that  your  work  pro- 
mises well;  that  it's  better  than  I  was  doing  at 
your  age,  and  that  very  likely  you  can  go  far 
with  it.  How  about  prose  —  the  novel,  for 
example?  Thackeray,  Howells,  Aldrich  —  a 
number  of  novelists  have  been  poets,  too." 

"Oh,  of  course  I  mean  to  try  a  novel  —  or 
maybe  a  dozen  of  them !  In  fact,"  Fulton  con- 
tinued, after  a  moment's  hesitation,  "I'm 
working  right  now  on  a  poetical  romance  with 
a  layer  of  realism  here  and  there  to  hold  it  to- 
gether. It 's  modern  with  an  up-to-date  setting. 
I  've  done  some  lyrics  and  songs  to  weave  into 
it.  There's  a  poet  who  tends  an  orchard  on  the 
shore  of  a  lake,  —  almost  like  Waupegan,  — 

[    42    ] 


and  a  girl  he  does  n't  know;  but  he  sees  her 
paddling  her  canoe  or  sometimes  playing  tennis 
near  an  inn  not  far  from  his  orchard.  He  leaves 
poems  around  for  her  to  find,  tacked  to  trees  or 
pinned  to  the  paddle  in  her  canoe;  I  suppose 
I'm  stealing  from  Rosalind  and  Orlando.  She's 
tall,  with  light  brown  hair, — there's  a  glint  of 
gold  in  it,  —  and  she 's  no  end  beautiful.  He 
watches  her  at  the  tennis  court  —  lithe,  eager, 
sure  of  hand  and  foot;  and  writes  madly,  all 
kinds  of  extravagant  songs  in  praise  of  her. 
The  horizon  itself  becomes  the  net,  and  she 
serves  her  ball  to  the  sun  —  you  see  he  has  a 
bad  case !  You  know  how  pretty  a  girl  is  on  a 
tennis  court,  —  that  is,  a  graceful  girl,  all  in 
white,  —  a  tall,  fair  girl  with  fluffy  hair;  a  very 
human,  wide-awake  girl,  who  can  make  a 
smashing  return  or  drop  the  ball  with  madden- 
ing ease  just  over  the  net  with  a  quick  twist  of 
the  wrist.  There 's  nothing  quite  like  that  girl 
—  those  girls,  I  should  say!" 
[  43  ] 


"I  like  your  orchard  and  the  lake,  and  the 
goddess  skipping  over  the  tennis  court;  but  I 
fancy  that  behind  all  romance  there's  some 
realism.  You  sketch  your  girl  vividly.  You 
must  have  seen  some  one  who  suggested  her; 
perhaps,  if  it  is  n't  impertinent,  you  yourself 
are  imaginably  the  young  gentleman  casually 
spraying  the  apple  trees  to  keep  the  bugs 
off!" 

It  was  in  the  Poet's  mind  that  young  men  of 
poetical  temperament  are  hardly  likely  to  pass 
their  twenty -sixth  birthday  without  a  love 
affair.  He  knew  nothing  of  Fulton  beyond 
what  the  young  man  had  just  told  him,  and 
presumably  his  social  contacts  had  been  mea- 
ger; but  his  voluble  description  of  his  heroine 
encouraged  a  suspicion  that  she  was  not  wholly 
a  creature  of  the  imagination. 

"Oh,  of  course  I've  had  a  particular  girl 
in  mind!"  Fulton  laughed.  "I've  gone  the 
lengths  of  realism  in  trying  to  describe  her.  I 
[  44  ] 


was  assigned  to  the  Country  Club  to  do  a  tennis 
tournament  last  fall,  and  I  saw  her  there.  She 
all  but  took  the  prize  away  from  a  girl  college 
champion  they  had  coaxed  out  from  the  East  to 
give  snap  to  the  exhibition.  My  business  was 
to  write  a  newspaper  story  about  the  game,  and 
being  a  mere  reporter  I  made  myself  small  on 
the  side  lines  and  kept  score.  Our  photographer 
got  a  wonderful  picture  of  her  —  my  goddess, 
I  mean  —  as  she  pulled  one  down  from  the 
clouds  and  smashed  it  over  the  net,  the  neatest 
stroke  of  the  match.  It  seemed  perfectly  rea- 
sonable that  she  could  roll  the  sun  under  her 
racket,  catch  it  up  and  drive  it  over  the  rim  of 
the  world!" 

"Her  name,"  said  the  Poet,  as  Fulton 
paused,  abashed  by  his  own  eloquence,  "is 
Marian  Agnew." 

"How  on  earth  did  you  guess  that!"  ex- 
claimed the  young  man. 

"  Oh,  there  is  something  to  be  said  for  real- 
[  45  ] 


ism,  after  all,  and  your  description  gave  me  all 
but  her  name.  I  might  quote  a  poem  I  have 
seen  somewhere  about  the  robin  — 

'There's  only  one  bird  sings  like  that  — 
From  Paradise  it  flew.'  " 

"I  have  n't  heard  her  sing,  but  she  laughed 
like  an  angel  that  day, — usually  when  she 
failed  to  connect  with  the  ball;  but  she  did  n't 
even  smile  when  the  joke  was  on  the  other  girl, 
— that's  being  a  good  sportsman!  I  rather 
laid  myself  out  praising  her  game.  But  if  you 
know  her  I  shall  burn  my  manuscript  and  let 
you  do  the  immortalizing." 

"On  the  other  hand,  you  should  go  right  on 
and  finish  your  story.  Don't  begin  to  accumu- 
late a  litter  of  half -finished  things;  you'll  find 
such  stuff  depressing  when  you  clean  up  your 
desk  on  rainy  days.  As  to  Marian,  you've 
never  spoken  to  her?" 

"No;  but  I've  seen  her  now  and  then  in  the 
street,  and  at  the  theater,  and  quite  a  bit  at 
[  46  ] 


Waupegan  last  fall.  She  has  plenty  of  admirers 
and  does  n't  need  me." 

"I'm  not  so  sure  of  that,"  the  Poet  replied 
absently. 

"I  must  be  going,"  said  the  young  man, 
jumping  up  as  the  clock  chimed  six.  "You've 
been  mighty  good  to  me;  I  shan't  try  to  tell 
you  how  greatly  I  appreciate  this  talk." 

"Well,  we  have  n't  got  anywhere;  but  we've 
made  a  good  beginning.  I  wish  you  'd  send  me 
half  a  dozen  poems  you  have  n't  printed,  in 
the  key  of  'Journeys'  End.'  And  come  again 
soon!" 

He  stood  on  the  steps  and  watched  the  young 
fellow's  vigorous  stride  as  he  hurried  out  of  the 
tranquil  street.  Oftener  than  not  his  pilgrims 
left  nothing  behind,  but  the  Poet  was  aware  of 
something  magnetic  and  winning  in  Fulton. 
Several  times  during  the  evening  he  found  him- 
self putting  down  his  book  to  recur  to  their 
interview.  He  had  not  overpraised  Fulton's 
[  47  ] 


THE    POET 


verses;  they  were  unusual,  clean-cut,  fresh,  and 
informed  with  a  haunting  music.  Most  of  the 
young  poets  who  sought  the  Poet's  counsel 
frankly  imitated  his  own  work;  and  it  was  a 
relief  to  find  some  one  within  the  gates  of  the 
city  he  loved  best  of  all  who  had  notched  a 
different  reed. 

The  Poet  preferred  the  late  hours  for  his 
writing.  Midnight  found  him  absorbed  in  a 
poem  he  had  carried  in  his  heart  for  days. 
Some  impulse  loosened  the  cords  now;  it  began 
to  slip  from  his  pencil  quickly,  line  upon  line. 
It  was  of  the  country  folk,  told  in  the  lingua 
rustica  to  which  his  art  had  given  dignity  and 
fame.  The  lines  breathed  atmosphere;  the 
descriptive  phrases  adumbrated  the  lonely 
farmhouse  with  its  simple  comforts  as  a  stage 
for  the  disclosure  of  a  little  drama,  direct,  pen- 
etrating, poignant.  He  was  long  hardened  to 
the  rejections  of  rigorous  self-criticism,  and 
not  infrequently  he  cast  the  results  of  a  night's 
[  48  ] 


labor  into  the  waste-paper  basket;  but  he 
experienced  now  a  sense  of  elation.  Perhaps, 
he  reflected,  the  various  experiences  of  the  day 
had  induced  just  the  right  mood  for  this  task. 
He  knew  that  what  he  had  wrought  was  good ; 
that  it  would  stand  with  his  best  achievements. 
He  made  a  clean  copy  of  the  verses  in  his  curi- 
ously small  hand  with  its  quaint  capitals,  and 
dropped  them  into  a  drawer  to  lose  their  famil- 
iarity against  the  morrow's  fresh  inspection. 
Like  all  creative  artists,  he  looked  upon  each 
of  his  performances  with  something  of  wonder. 
"How  did  I  come  to  do  that  in  just  that  way? 
What  was  it  that  suggested  this?"  If  it  were 
Marjorie  and  Marian,  or  Elizabeth  Redfield! 
.  .  .  Perhaps  young  Fulton's  enthusiasm  had 
been  a  contributing  factor. 

This  association  of  ideas  led  him  to  open  a 

drawer  and  rummage  among  old  letters.    He 

found  the  one  he  sought,  and  began  to  read. 

It  had  been  written  from  Lake  Waupegan, 

[    49    ] 


THE    POET 

that  pretty  teacupful  of  blue  water  which,  he 
recalled,  young  Fulton  had  chosen  as  the  scene 
for  his  story.  The  Redfields  had  gone  there  for 
their  honeymoon,  and  Elizabeth  had  written 
this  letter  in  acknowledgment  of  his  wedding 
gift.  It  was  not  the  usual  formula  of  thanks 
that  brides  send  fluttering  back  to  their  friends; 
and  it  was  because  it  was  different  that  he  had 
kept  it. 

"We  are  having  just  the  June  days  that 
you  have  written  about,  and  Miles  and  I  keep 
quoting  you,  and  saying  over  and  over  again, 
'he  must  have  watched  the  silvery  ripple  on 
the  lake  from  this  very  point ! '  or, '  How  did  he 
know  that  clover  was  like  that? '  And  how  did 
you?  .  .  .  Miles  brought  his  painting-kit,  and 
when  we're  not  playing  like  children  he's  hard 
at  work.  I  know  you  always  thought  he  ought 
to  go  on;  that  he  had  a  real  talent;  and  I  keep 
reminding  him  of  that.  You  know  we  Ve  got  a 
[  50  ] 


little  bungalow  on  the  edge  of  Nowhere  to  go 
to  when  we  come  home  and  there'll  be  a  line 
of  hollyhocks  along  the  fence  in  your  honor. 
Miles  says  we've  got  to  learn  to  be  practical; 
that  he  does  n't  propose  to  let  me  starve  to 
death  for  Art's  sake !  I  'm  glad  you  know  and 
understand  him  so  well,  for  it  makes  you  seem 
much  closer;  and  the  poem  you  wrote  me  in 
that  beautiful,  beautiful  Keats  makes  me  feel 
so  proud !  I  did  n't  deserve  that !  Those  things 
are  n't  true  of  me  —  but  I  want  them  to  be; 
I  'm  going  to  keep  that  lovely  book  in  its  cool 
green  covers  where  I  shall  see  it  the  first  and 
last  thing  every  day.  Your  lines  are  already 
written  in  my  heart!" 

The  Poet  turned  back  to  the  date:  only 
seven  years  ago ! 

The  sparrows  under  the  eaves  chirruped, 
and  drawing  back  the  blind  he  watched  the  glow 
of  dawn  spread  through  the  sky.  This  was  a 

[    51    ] 


familiar  vigil ;  he  had  seen  many  a  dream  vanish 
through  the  ivory  portals  at  the  coming  of  day. 

in 

A  CERTAIN  inadvertence  marked  the  Poet's 
ways.  His  deficiencies  in  orientation,  even 
in  the  city  he  knew  best  of  all,  were  a  joke 
among  his  friends.  He  apparently  gained  his 
destinations  by  good  luck  rather  than  by  in- 
tention. 

Incurable  modesty  made  him  shy  of  early 
or  precipitate  arrivals  at  any  threshold.  Even 
in  taking  up  a  new  book  he  dallied,  scanned 
the  covers,  pondered  the  title-page,  to  delay 
his  approach,  as  though  not  quite  sure  of  the 
author's  welcome  and  anxious  to  avoid  rebuff. 
The  most  winning  and  charming,  the  most 
lovable  of  men  —  and  entitled  to  humor  him- 
self in  such  harmless  particulars! 

The  affairs  that  men  busied  themselves  with 
were  incomprehensible  to  him.  It  was  with 
[  52  ] 


a  sense  of  encroachment  upon  forbidden  pre- 
serves that  he  suffered  himself  to  be  shot  sky- 
ward in  a  tall  office  building  and  dropped  into  a 
long  corridor  whose  doors  bore  inscriptions  that 
advertised  divers  unfamiliar  occupations  to  his 
puzzled  eyes. 

The  poem  that  had  slipped  so  readily  from 
his  pencil  in  the  watches  of  the  night  had 
proved,  upon  inspection  in  the  light  of  day,  to 
be  as  good  as  he  had  believed  it  to  be,  but  he 
carried  it  stowed  away  in  his  pocket,  hoping 
that  he  might  yet  detect  a  shaky  line  that  fur- 
ther mulling  would  better,  before  submitting  it 
to  other  eyes. 

This  was  a  new  building  and  he  had  never 
explored  its  fastnesses  before.  He  was  staring 
about  helplessly  on  the  threshold  of  Miles  Red- 
field's  office,  where  there  was  much  din  of  type- 
writers, when  his  name  was  spoken  in  hearty 
tones. 

"Very  odd!"  the  Poet  exclaimed;  "very 
[  53  ] 


odd,  indeed !  But  this  is  the  way  it  always  hap- 
pens with  me,  Miles.  I  start  out  to  look  for 
a  dentist  and  stumble  into  the  wrong  place. 
I  'm  in  luck  that  I  did  n't  fall  down  the  eleva- 
tor shaft.  I  can't  recall  now  whether  it  was 
the  dentist  I  was  looking  for  or  the  oculist." 

"I  hoped  you  were  looking  for  me!"  said 
Redfield;  "it's  a  long  time  since  you  remem- 
bered my  presence  on  earth ! " 

The  typewriters  had  ceased  to  click  and 
three  young  women  were  staring  their  admira- 
tion. The  Poet  bowed  to  them  all  in  turn, 
and  thus  rubricated  the  day  in  three  calendars! 
Redfield's  manifestations  of  pleasure  contin- 
ued as  he  ushered  the  Poet  into  his  private 
office.  Nothing  could  have  been  managed  more 
discreetly;  the  Poet  felt  proud  of  himself;  and 
there  was  no  questioning  the  sincerity  of  the 
phrases  in  which^Redfield  welcomed  him.  It 
was  with  a  sense  of  satisfaction  and  relief  that 
he  soon  found  himself  seated  in  a  mahogany 
[  54  ] 


chair  by  a  broad  window,  facing  Redfield,  and 
listening  to  his  assurances  that  this  was  an  idle 
hour  and'  that  he  had  .nothing  whatever  to  do 
but  to  make  himself  agreeable  to  poets.  The 
subdued  murmur  of  the  clicking  machines  and 
an  occasional  tinkle  of  telephones  reached  them ; 
but  otherwise  the  men  were  quite  shut  off  from 
the  teeming  world  without.  Redfield  threw 
himself  back  in  his  chair  and  knit  his  hands 
behind  his  head  to  emphasize  his  protestations 
of  idleness. 

"I  have  n't  seen  you  since  that  last  dinner 
at  the  University  Club  where  you  did  yourself 
proud  —  the  same  old  story !  I  don't  see  you 
as  much  as  I  did  before  you  got  so  famous  and 
I  got  so  busy.  I  wish  you  'd  get  into  the  habit 
of  dropping  in;  it's  a  comfort  to  see  a  man 
occasionally  that  you  're  not  inclined  to  wring 
money  out  of;  or  who  adds  zest  to  the  game  by 
trying  to  get  some  out  of  you ! " 

"From  all  accounts  you  take  pretty  good 
[  55  1 


care  of  yourself.  You  look  almost  offensively 
prosperous;  and  that  safe  would  hold  an  ele- 
phant. I  suppose  it's  crammed  full  of  works 
of  art  —  some  of  those  old  etching-plates  you 
used  to  find  such  delight  in.  I  can  imagine  you 
bolting  the  door  and  sitting  down  here  with 
a  plate  to  scratch  the  urban  sky-line.  Crowd 
waiting  outside;  stenographers  assuring  them 
that  you  will  appear  in  a  moment." 

"The  works  of  art  in  that  safe  are  engrav- 
ings all  right,"  laughed  Redfield;  "I've  got  'em 
to  sell,  —  shares  of  stock,  bonds,  and  that  sort 
of  trash.  I  '11  say  to  you  in  confidence  that  I  'm 
pretty  critical  of  the  designs  they  offer  me  when 
I  have  a  printing  job  to  do.  There 's  a  traction 
bond  I  'm  particularly  fond  of,  —  done  from 
an  old  design  of  my  own,  —  corn  in  the  shock, 
with  pumpkins  scattered  around.  Strong  local 
color!  You  used  to  think  rather  well  of  my 
feeble  efforts;  I  can't  remember  that  any  one 
else  ever  did !  Hence,  as  I  rather  like  to  eat,  I 


gave  over  trying  to  be  another  Whistler  and 
here  we  are!" 

"Rather  shabby,  when  you  come  to  think 
of  it,"  laughed  the  Poet, "  to  spurn  my  approval 
and  advice  to  keep  on.  If  you  'd  gone  ahead  — " 

"If  I  had,  I  should  be  seizing  a  golden  op- 
portunity like  this  to  make  a  touch  —  begging 
you  for  a  few  dollars  to  carry  me  over  Saturday 
night!  No;  I  tell  you  my  talent  wasn't  big 
enough;  I  was  sharp  enough  to  realize  my  lim- 
itations and  try  new  pastures.  Where  a  man 
can  climb  to  the  top,  art's  all  right;  but  look 
at  McPherson,  Banning,  Myers,  —  these  other 
fellows  around  here  we  're  all  so  proud  of,  — 
and  where  have  they  got?  Why,  even  Stiles, 
who  gets  hung  in  the  best  exhibitions  and  has 
a  reputation,  barely  keeps  alive.  I  saw  him  in 
New  York  last  week,  and  he  was  in  the  clouds 
over  the  sale  of  a  picture  for  two  hundred  dol- 
lars !  Think  of  it  —  and  I  wormed  it  out  of  him 
that  that  fixed  his  high-water  mark.  He  was 
[  57  ] 


going  to  buy  an  abandoned  farm  up  in  Connecti- 
cut somewhere;  two  hundred  dollars  down  on 
a  thousand  dollars  of  New  England  landscape; 
said  he  hoped  to  paint  enough  pictures  up 
there  this  summer  to  make  it  possible  to  keep 
a  horse!  There's  an  idea  for  you;  being  rich 
enough  to  keep  a  horse,  just  when  the  zoologi- 
cal museums  are  hustling  to  get  specimens  of 
the  species  before  the  last  one  dies!  You  could 
do  something  funny,  awfully  funny  on  that  — 
eminent  zoologist  out  looking  for  a  stuffed 
horse  to  stand  up  beside  the  ichthyosaurus 
and  the  diplodocus." 

The  Poet  expressed  his  gratitude  for  the 
suggestion  good-naturedly.  He  was  studying 
the  man  before  him  in  the  hope  of  determin- 
ing just  how  far  he  had  retrograded,  if  indeed 
there  had  been  retrogression.  Redfield  was  a 
trifle  stouter  than  he  had  been  in  the  days 
of  their  intimacy,  and  spoke  with  a  confidence 
and  assurance  that  the  Redfield  of  old  days 
[  58  ] 


had  lacked.  The  interview  had  come  about 
much  easier  than  he  had  hoped,  and  Red- 
field's  warmth  was  making  it  easier.  He  was 
relieved  to  find  on  this  closer  inspection  that 
Redfield  had  not  changed  greatly.  Once  or 
twice  the  broker's  brown  eyes  dimmed  with  a 
dreaminess  that  his  visitor  remembered.  He 
was  still  a  handsome  fellow,  not  over  thirty- 
five  the  Poet  reckoned,  and  showing  no  traces 
of  hard  living.  The  coarse,  unruly  brown  hair 
had  not  shared  the  general  smoothing-out  that 
was  manifest  in  the  man's  apparel.  It  was  a 
fine  head,  set  strongly  on  broad  shoulders.  The 
Poet,  always  minutely  observant  in  such  mat- 
ters, noted  the  hands  —  slim,  long,  supple, 
that  had  once  been  deft  with  brush  and  graver. 
In  spite  of  the  changes  of  seven  years,  con- 
cretely expressed  in  the  "Investment  Securi- 
ties" on  the  outer  door,  the  Poet  concluded 
that  much  remained  of  the  Miles  Redfield  he 
had  known.  And  this  being  true  increased  his 
[  59  ] 


difficulties  in  reconciling  his  friend  with  the 
haunting  picture  of  Marjorie  as  she  had  stood 
plaintively  aloof  at  the  children's  party,  or  with 
the  young  wife  whose  cheery,  hopeful  letter  he 
had  read  in  the  early  hours  of  the  morning. 

"I  passed  your  old  house  this  afternoon," 
the  Poet  observed  casually.  "I  was  out  getting 
a  breath  of  country  air  and  came  in  through 
Marston.  You  were  a  pioneer  when  you  went 
there  and  it's  surprising  how  that  region  has 
developed.  I  had  a  hard  time  finding  the  cot- 
tage, and  should  n't  have  known  it  if  it  had  n't 
been  for  some  of  the  ineffaceable  marks.  The 
shack  you  built  for  a  studio,  chiefly  with  your 
own  hands,  seems  to  have  been  turned  into 
a  garage  by  the  last  tenant  —  Oh,  prof anest 
usurpation !  But  the  house  has  n't  been  occu- 
pied for  some  time.  That  patch  of  shrubbery 
you  set  out  against  the  studio  has  become  a 
flourishing  jungle.  Let  me  see,  —  I  seem  to  re- 
call that  I  once  did  a  pretty  good  sonnet  in  the 
[  60  ] 


studio,  to  the  gentle  whizz  of  the  lawn-mower 
you  were  manipulating  outside." 

"I  remember  that  afternoon  perfectly  — 
and  the  sonnet,  which  is  one  of  your  best.  I 
dare  say  a  bronze  tablet  will  be  planted  there 
in  due  course  of  time  to  mark  a  favorite  haunt 
of  the  mighty  bard." 

Redfield  had  found  the  note  of  reminiscence 
ungrateful,  and  he  was  endeavoring  to  keep 
the  talk  in  a  light  key.  He  very  much  hoped 
that  the  Poet  would  make  one  of  his  character- 
istic tangential  excursions  into  the  realms  of 
impersonal  anecdote.  It  was  rather  remarkable 
that  this  man  of  all  men  had  happened  in  just 
now,  fresh  from  an  inspection  of  the  bungalow 
and  the  studio  behind  the  lilacs  that  Elizabeth 
had  planted.  He  began  to  feel  uncomfortable. 
It  was  not  so  much  the  presence  of  the  small, 
compact,  dignified  gentleman  in  the  chair  by 
the  window  that  disturbed  him  as  the  aims, 
standards,  teachings  that  were  so  inseparably 
[  61  ] 


associated  with  his  visitor's  name.  Redfield's 
perplexity  yielded  suddenly  to  annoyance,  and 
he  remarked  shortly,  as  though  anticipating 
questions  that  were  presumably  in  his  friend's 
mind:  — 

"Elizabeth  and  I  have  quit;  you've  prob- 
ably heard  that."  And  then,  as  though  to  dis- 
pose of  the  matter  quickly,  he  added:  "It 
would  n't  work  —  too  much  incompatibility; 
I  'm  willing  to  take  the  blame  —  guess  I  '11  have 
to,  anyhow ! "  he  ended  grimly.  "  I  suppose  it 's 
rather  a  shock  to  a  friend  like  you,  who  knew 
us  at  the  beginning,  when  we  were  planting  a 
garden  to  live  in  forever,  to  find  that  seven 
years  wound  it  up.  I  confess  that  I  was  rather 
knocked  out  myself  to  find  that  I  had  lost  my 
joy  in  trimming  the  hedge  and  sticking  bulbs 
in  the  ground." 

"I  noticed,"  said  the  Poet  musingly,  "that 
the  weeds  are  rioting  deliriously  in  the  garden." 

"Weeds!"  Redfield  caught  him  up  harshly; 
[  62  ] 


"I  dare  say  there  are  weeds!  Our  trouble  was 
that  we  thought  too  much  about  the  crocuses, 
and  forgot  to  put  in  cabbages!" 

"Well,  you're  putting  them  in  now!" 

"  Oh,  don't  be  hard  on  me !  I  '11  let  most  peo- 
ple jump  on  me  and  never  talk  back,  but  you 
with  your  fine  perceptions  ought  to  under- 
stand. Life  is  n't  what  it  used  to  be;  the  pace 
is  quicker,  changes  come  faster,  and  if  a  man 
and  woman  find  that  they  've  made  a  mistake, 
it's  better  to  cut  it  all  out  than  to  live  under 
the  same  roof  and  scowl  at  each  other  across 
the  table.  I  guess  you  can't  duck  that!" 

"I  shan't  try  to  duck  it,"  replied  the  Poet 
calmly.  "There's  never  anything  gained  by 
evading  a  clean-cut  issue.  It's  you  who  are 
dodging.  Remember,"  he  said,  with  a  smile, 
"that  I  should  n't  have  broached  the  subject 
myself;  but  now  that  you  Ve  brought  it  up  — " 

He  paused,  in  his  habitual  deliberate  fashion, 
reflecting  with  grateful  satisfaction  upon  the 
I  63  ] 


care  with  which  he  had  hidden  his  tracks !  He 
was  now  in  Redfield's  office;  and  his  old  friend 
had  instructed  the  clerks  outside  that  he  was 
not  to  be  disturbed  so  long  as  this  distinguished 
citizen  chose  to  honor  him.  The  Poet,  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life,  took  advantage  of  his  repu- 
tation. Redfield,  on  his  side,  knew  that  it  was 
impossible  to  evict  the  best-loved  man  in  the 
Commonwealth,  whose  presence  in  his  office 
had  doubtless  sent  a  thrill  to  the  very  core  of 
the  skyscraper. 

"Of  course,  these  things  really  concern  only 
the  parties  immediately  interested,"  Redfield 
remarked,  disturbed  by  his  caller's  manner  and 
anxious  to  hide  behind  generalizations.  He 
swung  himself  round  in  his  chair,  hoping  that 
this  utterance  would  deflect  the  discussion  into 
more  comfortable  channels;  but  the  Poet 
waited  patiently  for  Redfield  to  face  him 
again. 

"That  is  perfectly  true,"  he  admitted;  "and 
[  64  ] 


I  should  certainly  resent  the  interference  of 
outsiders  if  I  were  in  your  plight." 

Redfield  was  nodding  his  assent,  feeling 
that  here,  after  all,  was  a  reasonable  being, 
who  would  go  far  to  avoid  an  unwelcome  intru- 
sion upon  another's  affairs.  He  was  still  nod- 
ding complacently  when  the  Poet  remarked, 
with  a  neatness  of  delivery  that  he  usually  re- 
served for  humorous  effects,  — 

"But  it  happens,  Miles,  that  I  am  an  inter- 
ested party!" 

The  shock  of  this  surprise  shook  Redfield's 
composure.  He  glanced  quickly  at  his  caller 
and  then  at  the  door. 

"You  mean  that  Elizabeth  has  sent  you!" 
he  gasped.  "  If  that 's  the  case  —  " 

"No;  I  haven't  seen  Elizabeth  for  some 
time  —  not  since  I  heard  of  your  troubles;  and 
I  'm  not  here  to  represent  her  —  at  least,  not 
in  the  way  you  mean." 

Redfield's  face  expressed  relief;  he  had  been 
[  65  ] 


about  to  refer  his  visitor  to  his  lawyer,  but  he 
was  still  pretty  much  at  sea. 

"I  represent  not  one  person,  but  several  mil- 
lions of  people,"  the  Poet  proceeded  to  explain 
himself  unsmilingly,  in  a  tone  that  Redfield 
did  not  remember.  "You  see,  Miles,  your  diffi- 
culties and  your  attitude  toward  your  family 
and  life  in  general  are  hurting  my  business;  this 
may  sound  strange,  but  it's  quite  true.  And 
it's  of  importance  to  me  and  to  my  clients,  so 
to  speak." 

Redfield  stared  at  him  frowningly. 

"What  on  earth  are  you  driving  at?"  he 
blurted,  still  hoping  that  this  parley  was  only 
the  introduction  to  a  joke  of  some  sort.  There 
was,  however,  nothing  in  the  Poet's  manner  to 
sustain  this  hope  —  nor  could  he  detect  any 
trace  of  the  furtive  smile  which,  he  recalled, 
sometimes  gave  warning  of  the  launching  of 
some  absurdity  by  this  man  who  so  easily 
played  upon  laughter  and  tears. 
[  66  ] 


"There's  no  such  thing  as  you  and  me  in 
this  world,  Redfield,"  pursued  the  Poet  —  and 
his  smile  reappeared  now,  fleetingly,  and  he 
was  wholly  at  ease,  confident,  direct,  business- 
like. "We're  all  Us  —  you  might  say  that 
mankind  is  a  lot  of  Us-es.  And  when  you  let 
the  weeds  grow  up  in  your  garden  they're  a 
menace  to  all  the  neighbors.  And  you  can't 
just  go  off  and  leave  them;  it  is  n't  fair  or 
square.  I  see  you  don't  yet  quite  understand 
where  I  come  in  —  how  you  're  embarrassing 
me,  cheating  me,  hurting  my  business,  to  put 
it  flatly.  You  're  making  it  appear  that  I  'm  a 
false  prophet,  a  teacher  of  an  outworn  creed. 
Any  reputation  that  you  're  willing  to  concede  I 
have  does  n't  rest  upon  profound  scholarship, 
which  I  don't  pretend  to  possess,  but  upon  the 
feeble  testimony  I  've  borne  to  some  very  old 
ideals.  You  've  known  me  a  long  time  and  you 
can't  say  that  I ' ve  ever  bragged  of  myself  — 
and  if  you  knew  how  humbly  I '  ve  taken  such 
[  67  ] 


success  as  I  Ve  had  you  'd  know  that  I  'm  not 
likely  to  be  misled  by  the  public's  generous 
kindness  toward  my  work.  But  I  owe  some- 
thing to  the  rest  of  Us;  I  can't  afford  to  stand 
by  and  see  the  little  fringes  I '  ve  tacked  on  to 
old  fabrics  torn  off  without  making  a  protest. 
To  put  it  another  way,  I  'm  not  going  to  have 
it  said  that  the  gulf  is  so  widening  between 
poetry  and  life  that  another  generation  will  be 
asking  what  our  rhymed  patter  was  all  about 
—  not  without  a  protest.  I  hope  you  see  what 
I  'm  driving  at,  and  where  I  'm  coming  out  —  " 

Redfield  walked  to  the  window  and  stared 
across  the  roofs,  with  his  hands  thrust  into  his 
pockets. 

"It  is  n't  easy,  you  know,  Miles,  for  me  to 
be  doing  this:  I  should  n't  be  doing  it  if  your 
affairs  had  n't  been  thrown  in  my  face;  if  I 
did  n't  feel  that  they  were  very  much  my  busi- 
ness. Yesterday  I  saw  Marjorie  —  it  was  at  a 
children's  party  at  Mrs.  Waring's  —  and  the 
[  68  ] 


sight  of  her  was  like  a  stab.  I  believe  I  wrote 
some  verses  for  her  second  —  maybe  it  was  her 
third  —  birthday  —  pinned  one  of  my  little 
pink  ribbons  on  her,  so  to  speak,  and  made  her 
one  of  my  children.  I  tell  you  it  hurt  me  to  see 
her  yesterday  —  and  know  that  the  weeds  had 
sprung  up  in  her  garden!" 

Redfield  flung  round  impatiently. 

"But  you're  applying  the  wrong  tests;  — 
you  don't  know  all  the  circumstances!  You 
would  n't  have  a  child  brought  up  in  a  home  of 
strife,  would  you?  I  'm  willing  for  Elizabeth  to 
have  full  charge  of  Marjorie  —  I  Ve  waived  all 
my  right  to  her.  I'm  not  as  callous  as  you 
think:  I'd  have  you  know  that  it's  a  wrench 
to  part  with  her." 

"You  have  n't  any  right  to  part  with  her," 
said  the  Poet.  "You  can't  turn  her  over  to 
Elizabeth  as  though  she  were  a  piece  of  furni- 
ture that  you  don't  particularly  care  for!  It 
is  n't  fair  to  the  child;  it's  not  fair  to  Eliza- 
[  69  ] 


beth.  Don't  try  to  imagine  that  there's  any- 
thing generous  or  magnanimous  in  waiving 
your  claims  to  your  own  child.  A  man  can't 
throw  off  his  responsibilities  as  easily  as  that. 
It's  contemptible;  it  won't  do!" 

"I  tell  you,"  said  Redfield  angrily,  "the 
whole  thing  had  grown  intolerable.  It  did  n't 
begin  yesterday;  it  dates  back  three  years  ago, 
and—" 

"Just  how  did  it  begin?"  the  Poet  inter- 
rupted. 

"  Well,  it  began  with  money  —  not  debts, 
strange  to  say,  but  the  other  way  around !  My 
father  died  and  left  me  about  eight  thousand 
dollars  —  more  than  I  ever  hoped  to  hold  in 
my  hand  at  once  if  I  lived  forever.  It  looked 
bigger  than  a  million,  I  can  tell  you.  I  was  a 
bank-teller,  earning  fifteen  hundred  dollars  a 
year  and  playing  at  art  on  the  side.  We  lived 
on  the  edge  of  nowhere  and  pinched  along  with 
no  prospect  of  getting  anywhere.  When  that 
[  70  ] 


money  fell  in  my  lap  I  saw  the  way  out  —  it 
was  like  a  dream  come  true,  straight  down  from 
heaven.  I  'd  picked  up  a  good  deal  about  the 
bond  business  in  the  bank  —  used  to  take  a 
turn  in  that  department  occasionally;  and  it 
was  n't  like  tackling  something  new.  So  I  quit 
my  bank  job  and  jumped  in  for  myself.  After 
the  third  month  I  made  expenses,  and  the  sec- 
ond year  I  cleaned  up  five  thousand  dollars  — 
and  I  'm  not  through  yet,"  he  concluded  with 
a  note  of  triumph. 

"And  how  does  all  that  affect  Elizabeth?" 
asked  the  Poet  quietly. 

"Well,  Elizabeth  is  one  of  those  timid  crea- 
tures, who'd  be  content  to  sit  on  a  suburban 
veranda  all  her  days  and  wait  for  the  milk 
wagon.  She  could  n't  realize  that  opportunity 
was  knocking  at  the  door.  How  do  you  think 
she  wanted  to  invest  that  eight  thousand  — 
wanted  me  to  go  to  New  York  to  study  in  the 
League;  figured  out  that  we  could  do  that  and 
[  71  ] 


then  go  to  Paris  for  a  year.  And  if  she  had  n't 
got  to  crying  about  it,  I  might  have  been  fool 
enough  to  do  it ! " 

He  took  a  turn  across  the  room  and  then 
paused  before  his  caller  with  the  air  of  one 
about  to  close  a  debate.  The  Poet  was  scru- 
tinizing the  handle  of  his  umbrella  fixedly,  as 
though  the  rough  wood  presented  a  far  more 
important  problem  than  the  matter  under  dis- 
cussion. 

'  "Elizabeth  rather  showed  her  faith  in  you 
there,  did  n't  she?  "  he  asked,  without  looking 
up.  "Eight  thousand  dollars  had  come  into 
the  family,  quite  unexpectedly,  and  she  was 
willing  to  invest  it  in  you,  in  a  talent  she  highly 
valued ;  in  what  had  been  to  her  the  fine  thing 
in  you  —  the  quality  that  had  drawn  you  to- 
gether. There  was  a  chance  that  it  might  all 
have  been  wasted  —  that  you  would  n't,  as 
the  saying  is,  have  made  good,  and  that  at  the 
end  of  a  couple  of  years  you  would  not  only 
[  72  ] 


have  been  out  the  money,  but  out  of  a  job.  She 
was  willing  to  take  the  chance.  The  fact  that 
you  ignored  her  wishes  and  are  prospering  in 
spite  of  her  is  n't  really  the  answer;  a  man  who 
has  shaken  his  wife  and  child  —  who  has  per- 
mitted them  to  be  made  the  subjects  of  dis- 
agreeable gossip  through  his  obstinate  unrea- 
sonableness is  n't  prospering.  In  fact,  I  'd  call 
him  a  busted  community." 

"Oh,  there  were  other  things!"  exclaimed 
Redfield.  "We  made  each  other  uncomfort- 
able; it  got  to  a  point  where  every  trifling  thing 
had  to  be  argued  —  constant  contention  and 
wrangle.  When  I  started  into  this  business 
I  had  to  move  into  town.  After  I'd  got  the 
nicest  flat  I  could  hope  to  pay  for  that  first 
year,  Elizabeth  insisted  on  being  unhappy 
about  that.  It  was  important  for  me  to  culti- 
vate people  who  would  be  of  use  to  me;  it's  a 
part  of  this  game;  but  she  did  n't  like  my  new 
acquaintances  —  made  it  as  hard  for  me  as 
[  73  ] 


possible.  She  always  had  a  way  of  carrying  her 
chin  a  little  high,  you  know.  These  people  that 
have  always  lived  in  this  town  are  the  worst 
lot  of  snobs  that  ever  breathed  free  air,  and 
just  because  her  great-grandfather  happened  to 
land  here  in  time  to  say  good-bye  to  the  last 
Indian  is  no  reason  for  snubbing  the  unfortu- 
nates who  only  arrived  last  summer.  If  her 
people  had  n't  shown  the  deterioration  you  find 
in  all  old  stock,  and  if  her  father  had  n't  died 
broke,  you  might  excuse  her;  but  this  thing 
of  living  on  your  ancestors  is  no  good  —  it's 
about  as  thin  as  starving  your  stomach  on  art 
and  feeding  your  soul  on  sunsets.  I  tell  you, 
my  good  brother,"  —  with  an  ironic  grin  on 
his  face  he  clapped  his  hand  f amiliarly  on  the 
Poet's  shoulder,  —  "there  are  more  things  in 
real  life  than  are  dreamed  of  in  your  poet's 
philosophy ! " 

The  Poet  particularly  disliked  this  sort  of 
familiarity;  his  best  friends  never  laid  hands 
[    74    1 


EVERY    TRIPLING    THING    HAD    TO    BE    ARGUED 


on  him.  He  resented  even  more  the  leer  that 
had  written  itself  in  Redfield's  face.  Traces  of 
a  coarsening  of  fiber  that  he  had  looked  for 
at  the  beginning  of  the  interview  were  here 
apparent  in  tone  and  gesture,  and  did  not 
contribute  to  the  Poet's  peace  of  mind.  The 
displeasure  in  his  face  seemed  to  remind  Red- 
field  that  this  was  not  a  man  one  slapped  on  the 
back,  or  spoke  to  leeringly.  He  flushed  and 
muttered  an  apology,  which  the  Poet  chose  to 
ignore. 

"A  woman  who  has  had  half  an  acre  of 
Mother  Earth  to  play  in  for  seven  years  and 
has  fashioned  it  into  an  expression  of  her  own 
soul,  and  has  swung  her  baby  in  a  hammock 
under  cherry  trees  in  bloom,  must  be  pardoned 
if  she  doesn't  like  being  cooped  up  in  a  flat 
and  asked  to  be  polite  to  people  her  husband 
expects  to  make  money  out  of.  I  understand 
that  you  have  left  the  flat  for  a  room  at  the 
club." 


"I  mean  to  take  care  of  them  —  you  must 
give  me  credit  for  that!"  said  Redfield,  angry 
that  he  was  not  managing  his  case  more  effec- 
tively. "  But  Elizabeth  is  riding  the  high  horse 
and  refuses  to  accept  anything  from  me!" 

"I  should  think  she  would!  She  wouldn't 
be  the  woman  I've  admired  all  these  years  if 
she  'd  let  you  throw  crumbs  to  her  from  your 
club  window!" 

"She  thinks  she's  going  to  rub  it  into  me  by 
going  to  work!  She's  going  to  teach  a  kinder- 
garten, in  the  hope,  I  suppose,  of  humiliating 
me!" 

"It  would  be  too  bad  if  some  of  the  humilia- 
tion landed  on  your  door ! " 

"I've  been  as  decent  as  I  could;  I've  done 
everything  I  could  to  protect  her." 

"I  suppose,"  observed  the  Poet  carelessly, 
"there's  another  woman  somewhere  — " 

"That's  a  lie!"  Redfield  flared.  "I've  al- 
ways been  square  with  Elizabeth,  and  you 
[  76  ] 


know  it!  If  there's  any  scandalous  gossip  of 
that  kind  afloat  it 's  damnably  unjust !  I  hoped 
you  had  a  better  idea  of  me  than  that ! " 

"I'm  sorry,"  said  the  Poet,  with  sincere 
contrition.  "  We  '11  consider,  then,  that  there 's 
no  such  bar  to  a  reconciliation." 

He  let  his  last  word  fall  quietly  as  though 
it  were  a  pebble  he  had  dropped  into  a  pool 
for  the  pleasure  of  watching  the  resulting 
ripples. 

"  If  that 's  what 's  in  your  mind,  the  sooner 
you  get  it  out  the  better! "  snapped  Redfield. 
"  We  've  gone  beyond  all  that ! " 

"The  spring  was  unusually  fine,"  the  Poet 
hastened  to  remark  with  cheerful  irrelevance, 
as  though  all  that  had  gone  before  had  merely 
led  up  to  the  weather;  "June  is  justifying 
Lowell's  admiration.  Your  view  off  there  is 
splendid.  It  just  occurs  to  me  that  these  tall 
buildings  are  not  bad  approximations  of  ivory 
towers;  a  good  place  for  dreams  —  nice  hori- 
[  77  ] 


zons  —  edges  of  green  away  off  there,  and  un- 
less my  sight  is  failing  that's  a  glimpse  of 
the  river  you  get  beyond  those  heaven-kissing 
chimneys." 

Redfield  mopped  his  brow  and  sighed  his 
relief.  Clearly  the  Poet,  realizing  the  futility 
of  the  discussion,  was  glad  to  close  it;  and 
Redfield  had  no  intention  of  allowing  him  to 
return  to  it. 

He  opened  the  door  with  an  eagerness  at 
which  the  Poet  smiled  as  he  walked  deliberately 
through  the  outer  room,  exposing  himself  once 
more  to  the  admiring  smiles  of  the  girls  at 
the  typewriters.  He  paused  and  told  them 
a  story,  to  which  Redfield,  from  the  threshold 
of  his  sanctum,  listened  perforce. 

At  the  street  entrance  the  Poet  met  Fulton 
hurrying  into  the  building. 

"  I  was  just  thinking  of  you ! "  cried  the  young 
man.  "Half  a  minute  ago  I  dropped  a  little 
packet  with  your  name  on  it  into  the  box  at 
[  78  ] 


the  corner,  and  was  feeling  like  a  criminal  to 
think  of  what  I  was  inflicting ! " 

"It  occurs  to  me,"  mused  the  Poet,  leaning 
on  his  umbrella,  quite  indifferent  to  the  hurry- 
ing crowd  that  swept  through  the  entrance, 
"that  the  mail-box  might  be  a  good  subject  for 
a  cheerful  jingle  —  the  repository  of  hopes,  am- 
bitions, abuse,  threats,  love  letters,  and  duns. 
It 's  by  treating  such  subjects  attractively  that 
we  may  hope  to  reach  the  tired  business  man 
and  persuade  him  that  not  weak-winged  is 
song!  Apollo  leaning  against  a  letter-box  and 
twanging  his  lyre  divine  for  the  muses  to 
dance  a  light  fantastic  round  —  a  very  pretty 
thought,  Mr.  Fulton!" 

The  Poet,  obviously  on  excellent  terms  with 
the  world,  indulged  himself  further  in  whimsi- 
cal comment  on  possible  subjects  for  verse, 
even  improvising  a  few  lines  of  doggerel  for 
the  reporter's  amusement. 

And  then,  after  he  had  turned  away,  he 
[  79  ] 


called  the  young  man  back,  as  though  by  an 
afterthought. 

"As  to  Redfield,  you  have  n't  done  anything 
yet?" 

"No;  I'm  on  my  way  to  see  him  now." 
"Well,  don't  be  in  a  hurry  about  making  the 
change.  You  'd  better  go  up  to  the  lake  Sunday 
and  sit  on  the  shore  all  day  and  let  June  soak 
in.  You  will  find  that  it  helps.  I  '11  meet  those 
verses  you're  sending  me  at  the  outer  wicket; 
I 'm  sure  I '11  like  them!" 

IV 

WHEN  Saturday  proved  to  be  the  fairest  of 
June  days,  the  Poet  decided  that  it  was  a  pity 
to  remain  in  city  pent  when  three  hours  on  the 
train  would  carry  him  to  Waupegan,  a  spot 
whose  charms  had  been  brought  freshly  to  his 
attention  by  the  sheaf  of  verses  Fulton  had 
sent  him.  He  had  hoped  to  find  Fulton  on  the 
tram;  but  when  the  young  man  did  not  appear, 
[  80  ] 


he  found  compensation  in  the  presence  of  Mrs. 
Waring,  who  was  bound  for  Waupegan  to  take 
possession  of  her  house. 

"Marian  took  Marjorie  up  yesterday.  It 
occurred  to  me,  after  I  'd  posted  Elizabeth  off 
with  a  servant  to  straighten  up  my  house,  that 
I'd  done  the  cruelest  thing  imaginable,  for 
Elizabeth  went  honeymooning  to  Waupegan  — 
I  gave  her  and  Miles  my  house  for  a  fortnight, 
as  you  may  remember.  I  wanted  to  get  her 
out  of  town  and  I  never  thought  of  that  until 
she'd  gone." 

"Is  n't  it  a  good  sign  that  Elizabeth  would 
go?  It  shows  that  the  associations  of  the  lake 
still  mean  something  to  her." 

"  Oh,  but  they  don't  mean  anything  to  him — 
that 's  the  trouble !  If  there  ever  was  a  brute  — ' ' 

"There  are  worse  men  —  or  brutes,"  the 
Poet  mildly  suggested. 

"I  can't  imagine  it!"  Mrs.  Waring  replied 
tartly. 

[    81    ] 


"I'm  going  fishing,"  the  Poet  explained, 
when  Mrs.  Waring  demanded  to  know  what 
errand  was  carrying  him  lakeward.  His  dislike 
of  railway  journeys  was  well  known  to  all  his 
friends;  and  no  one  had  ever  heard  of  his  going 
fishing. 

"I  have  asked  you  to  the  lake  scores  of  times 
to  visit  me,  and  you  have  scorned  all  my  invi- 
tations. Now  that  I  've  caught  you  in  the  act 
of  going  up  alone,  I  demand  that  you  make 
me  the  visit  you ' ve  been  promising  for  twenty 
years." 

"Fishing,"  observed  the  Poet  soberly,  "is 
a  business  that  requires  the  closest  attention 
and  strictest  privacy.  I  should  be  delighted  to 
make  that  visit  at  this  time,  but  when  I  fish 
I  'm  an  intolerable  person  —  unsociable  and 
churlish;  you'd  always  hate  me  if  I  accepted 
your  hospitable  shelter  when  I  would  a-fishing 
go." 

"You'll  not  find  the  hotel  a  particularly 

[    82    ] 


tranquil  place  for  literary  labor,  and  the  food 
at  my  house  could  n't  be  worse  than  you  '11  get 
there.  I  Ve  warned  you !" 

She  was  frankly  curious  as  to  the  nature  of 
his  errand,  and  continued  to  chaff  him  about 
his  piscatorial  ambitions.  He  gave  his  humor 
full  rein  in  adding  to  her  mystification. 

"Perhaps,"  he  finally  confessed,  "I  shall  hire 
a  boy  to  do  the  fishing  for  me,  while  I  sit  under 
a  tree  and  boss  him." 

"No  boy  with  any  spirit  would  fish  for  any- 
body else  —  no  respectable,  well-brought-up 
boy  would!" 

"There's  where  you're  quite  mistaken!  I 
expect  to  find  a  boy  —  and  a  pretty  likely 
young  fellow  he  is,  reared  on  a  farm,  and  all 
that  —  I  expect  to  find  him  ready  for  business 
in  the  morning.  Mind  you,  he  did  n't  promise 
to  come,  but  if  he's  the  youngster  I  think  he  is, 
he'll  be  there  right  side  up  with  care  to-morrow 
morning." 

[    83    ] 


"I  don't  believe  I  like  you  so  well  when  you 
play  at  being  mysterious.  This  idea,  that  if 
you  serenely  fold  your  hands  and  wait  —  John 
Burroughs,  is  n't  it?  —  your  own  will  come 
to  you,  never  worked  for  me.  I  should  never 
have  got  anywhere  in  my  life  if  I  had  folded 
my  hands  and  waited." 

"There  must  always  be  one  who  journeys 
to  meet  him  who  waits,  and  with  your  superb 
energy  you  have  done  the  traveling.  I  'm  play- 
ing both  parts  in  this  affair  just  as  an  experi- 
ment. To-day  I  travel;  to-morrow  I  shall  sit 
on  the  dock  and  wait  for  that  boy  who 's  to  do 
my  fishing  for  me.  I'm  not  prepared  for  dis- 
appointment; I  have  every  confidence  that  he 
will  arrive  in  due  season.  Particularly  now  that 
you  tell  me  Marian  is  already  illuminating  the 
landscape!" 

Mrs.  Waring  was  giving  him  only  half  atten- 
tion, but  she  pricked  up  her  ears  at  this  state- 
ment. 

[    84    ] 


"Marian !  What  on  earth  has  she  to  do  with 
this  fishing-trip?" 

"Nothing,  except  that  I  have  a  message 
for  her  from  the  cool  slopes  of  Parnassus.  It's 
almost  like  something  you  read  of  in  books  — 
her  being  here  waiting  for  the  sacred  papyri." 

He  tapped  his  pocket  and  smiled. 

"I  hadn't  the  slightest  idea  she  was  up 
there  waiting,"  he  continued.  "  You  must  con- 
fess that  it's  rather  remarkable!  Folding  her 
hands,  utterly  unconscious  of  what  Fate  has 
in  store  for  her;  and  poems  being  written  to 
her,  and  my  fisher-boy  on  the  trail  looking  for 
me  —  and  her ! " 

"I  'm  sure  I  don't  know  what  you  're  driving 
at,  but  you  'd  better  keep  your  verses  for  some- 
body else.  Marian 's  a  much  more  practical  girl 
than  Elizabeth;  I  don't  quite  see  her  receiving 
messages  from  the  Muses  with  more  than  chilly 
politeness.  You  may  be  sure  she  will  profit  by 
Elizabeth's  experience.  Elizabeth  married  a 
[  85  ] 


man  with  an  artistic  temperament  and  she's 
paid  dearly  for  it.  A  blow  like  that  falling  so 
close  to  Marian  is  bound  to  have  its  effect.  If 
you  want  to  win  her  smiles,  don't  appeal  to  her 
through  poetry.  As  I  was  saying  the  other  day, 
poetry  is  charming,  and  sometimes  it 's  uplift- 
ing; but  we  're  getting  away  from  it.  These  are 
changing  times,  and  pretty  soon  it  won't  be 
respectable  to  be  decent!" 

"You  said  something  to  the  same  effect  the 
other  day  when  your  garden  was  full  of  chil- 
dren. I  was  greatly  disappointed  in  you;  it 
was  n't  fair  to  the  children  to  talk  that  way 
—  even  if  they  did  n't  hear  you.  I  was  all 
broken  up  after  that  party;  I  haven't  been 
the  same  man  since ! " 

"  Oh,  I  did  n't  mean  to  reflect  on  you  or  your 
work;  you  know  that!" 

"I  know  nothing  of  the  kind,"  returned 
the  Poet  amiably.  "You  have  said  it  twice, 
though  the  first  time  was  enough.  I  'm  a  differ- 
t  86  ] 


ent  person;  you  've  changed  the  whole  current 
of  my  life !  I  'm  making  a  journey,  on  a  very 
hot  afternoon,  that  I  should  never  have  thought 
of  making  if  it  had  n't  been  for  your  cynical 
remarks.  I  've  taken  employment  as  an  agent 
of  Providence,  just  to  prove  to  you  that  my 
little  preachments  in  rhyme  are  not  altogether 
what  our  young  people  call  piffle.  I  've  come 
down  out  of  the  pulpit,  so  to  speak,  to  put  my 
sermons  into  effect  —  a  pretty  good  thing  for 
all  parsons  to  do.  Or,  to  go  back  to  the  start- 
ing-point, I've  hung  my  harp  on  the  willows 
that  I  may  fish  the  more  conveniently." 

"You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourself  to 
make  sport  of  a  woman  of  my  years!  You 
had  better  tell  me  a  funny  story,"  said  Mrs. 
Waring,  fearing  that  he  was  laughing  at 
her. 

"I  shall  do  nothing  of  the  kind !  I  am  heavily 
armed  with  magazines  and  I  shall  read  the 
rest  of  the  way  to  Waupegan.  Besides,  I  need 
[  87  ] 


time  for  planning  my  work  to-morrow.  It  will 
be  my  busiest  day!" 

It  was  dark  when  the  train  paused  at  the 
lake  station,  and  Mrs.  Redfield  was  wait- 
ing, having  come  over  in  a  launch  to  meet 
Mrs.  Waring.  She  was  wrapped  in  a  long 
coat  and  carried  a  lantern,  which  she  held  up 
laughingly  to  verify  her  identification  of  the 
Poet. 

"Marian  and  I  have  just  been  talking  of 
you!  She  and  Marjorie  have  told  me  all  about 
the  garden-party,  and  of  the  beautiful  time 
you  gave  the  children." 

"If  she  didn't  mention  the  beautiful  time 
they  gave  me,  she  did  n't  tell  the  whole  story. 
And  if  I  had  n't  gone  to  Mrs.  Waring's  party, 
I  should  n't  be  here!" 

"Don't  pay  any  attention  to  him,"  inter- 
posed Mrs.  Waring,  counting  her  trunks  as 
they  were  transferred  to  the  miniature  steamer 
t  88  ] 


that  plied  the  lake.  "There's  some  joke  about 
his  coming  here;  he's  told  you  one  story  and 
an  hour  ago  he  was  assuring  me  that  he  had 
come  up  to  fish!" 

She  turned  away  for  a  moment  to  speak  to 
some  old  friends  among  the  cottagers,  leaving 
Mrs.  Redfield  and  the  Poet  alone. 

"I'm  glad  you  are  here,"  said  the  Poet,  "for 
I  shall  stay  a  few  days  and  I  hope  we  can  have 
some  talks." 

"I  hope  so;  but  I  must  go  very  soon.  I've 
only  been  waiting  for  Mrs.  Waring  to  come.  It 
was  like  her  to  make  a  chance  for  me  to  get 
away;  you  know  Waupegan  is  like  home ;  my 
father  used  to  have  a  cottage  here  and  we  chil- 
dren were  brought  up  on  the  lake." 

She  was  a  small,  dark-eyed  woman,  a  marked 
contrast  to  her  tall,  fair  sister.  Her  sense  of  fun 
had  always  been  a  delight  to  her  friends;  she 
was  a  capital  mimic  and  had  been  a  star  in 
amateur  theatricals.  The  troubles  of  the  past 
[  89  ] 


year  —  or  of  the  years,  to  accept  Redfield's 
complaint  at  its  full  value — had  not  destroyed 
her  vivacity.  She  was  of  that  happy  company 
who  carry  into  middle  life  and  beyond  the 
freshness  of  youth.  She  had  been  married  at 
twenty,  and  to  the  Poet's  eyes  she  seemed  little 
older  now. 

He  had  been  wondering  since  his  interview 
with  Redfield  how  he  had  ever  dared  go  as  far 
in  meddling  with  other  people's  affairs.  Face 
to  face  with  Redfield's  wife,  he  was  more  self- 
conscious  than  was  comfortable.  It  would  not 
be  easy  to  talk  to  Elizabeth  of  her  difficulties, 
for  the  Poet  was  not  a  man  whom  women  took 
into  their  confidence  over  a  teacup.  He  abused 
himself  for  leaving  his  proper  orbit  for  foolish 
adventures  in  obscure,  unmapped  corners  of 
the  heavens. 

He  said  that  the  stars  were  fine,  and  having 
failed  to  amplify  this  with  anything  like  the 
grace  that  might  be  expected  of  a  poet,  he 
[  90  ] 


glanced  at  her  and  found  her  eyes  bright  with 
tears.  This  was  altogether  disconcerting,  but  it 
illustrated  the  embarrassments  of  the  situation 
into  which  he  had  projected  himself.  Clearly 
the  ambition  to  harmonize  poetry  and  life  was 
not  without  peril;  he  felt  that  as  the  ambassa- 
dor from  the  court  of  Poesy  it  might  be  neces- 
sary to  learn  a  new  language  to  make  himself 
understood  at  the  portals  of  Me.  Instead  of 
promoting  peace,  he  might,  by  the  least  tact- 
less remark,  prolong  the  war,  and  the  thought 
was  dismaying. 

As  she  turned  her  head  to  hide  treasonable 
tears  he  saw  her  draw  herself  up,  and  lift  her 
head  as  though  to  prove  to  him  that  there  was 
still  courage  in  her  heart,  no  matter  if  her  eyes 
did  betray  the  citadel. 

"You  see,  we  hung  up  a  new  moon  in  honor 
of  your  coming.  It's  like  a  little  feather,  just 
as  Rossetti  says." 

"Too  suggestive  of  a  feather  duster,"  he  re- 
[  91  ] 


marked  lightly ;  and  seeing  Mrs.  Waring  walk- 
ing toward  them  he  added,  gravely :  — 

"I've  lied  like  the  most  miserable  of  sinners 
about  this  trip ;  I  came  in  answer  to  your  letter. 
I  find  that  most  letters  will  answer  themselves 
if  you  wait  long  enough.  Yours  is  just  seven 
years  old!" 

"Oh,"  she  cried,  with  a  quick  catch  of 
the  breath;  "you  don't  mean  that  you  kept 
that!" 

"I  most  certainly  did !  It  was  a  very  beauti- 
ful letter.  I  happened  to  be  re-reading  it  the 
other  night  and  decided  that  it  deserved  an 
answer;  so  here  I  am!" 

"I'm  both  sorry  and  glad  you  came.  It's 
immensely  good  of  you;  it's  just  like  you!  But 
it's  no  use;  of  course  you  know  that!" 

"Oh,  I  should  never  have  come  on  my  own 
hook!  I'm  only  the  humble  representative  of 
thousands  and  thousands  of  people,  and  the 
stars  —  maybe  —  and  that  frugal  slice  of 

[    92    1 


melon  up  there  we  call  the  moon.  Nobody  else 
wanted  the  job,  so  I  took  it." 

He  laughed  at  the  puzzled  look  in  the  dark 
eyes,  which  was  like  the  wondering  gaze  of  a 
child,  half-fearful,  half-confiding. 

"Elizabeth,  are  you  going  to  stand  there  all 
night  talking  to  any  poet  that  comes  along!" 
demanded  Mrs.  Waring;  and  as  she  joined 
them  the  Poet  began  talking  amusingly  to  allay 
suspicion. 

He  again  declined  to  accompany  her  home, 
protesting  that  he  must  not  disappoint  the 
boy  who  would  certainly  be  on  hand  in  the 
morning  to  fish  for  him.  He  waved  his  hand  as 
the  launch  swung  off,  called  the  man  who  was 
guarding  his  suit-case  and  followed  him  to  the 
inn. 


PART  TWO 
v 

MARIAN  andi  Marjorie  had  builded  a  house 
of  sand  on  a  strip  of  shaded  beach,  and  by  the 
fraudulent  use  of  sticks  and  stones  they  had 
made  it  stand  in  violation  of  all  physical  laws. 
Now  that  the  finishing  touches  had  been  given 
to  the  tower,  Marjorie  thrust  her  doll  through 
a  window. 

"That  will  never  do!"  protested  Marian. 
"In  a  noble  chateau  like  this  the  chatelaine 
must  not  stand  on  her  head.  When  the  knights 
[  97  ] 


come  riding,  she  must  be  waiting,  haughty  and 
proud,  in  the  great  hall  to  meet  them." 

"Should  urns?"  asked  Marjorie,  watching 
her  aunt  gouge  a  new  window  in  the  moist  wall 
so  that  the  immured  lady  might  view  the  lake 
more  comfortably. 

"'Urns -should,' indeed!" 

"Should  the  lady  have  coffee-cake  for  urns 
tea?  We  never  made  no  pantry  nor  kitchen  in 
urns  house,  and  lady  will  be  awful  hungry.  I  '11 
push  urns  a  cracker.  There,  you  lady,  you  can 
eat  urns  supper!" 

"When  her  knight  comes  riding,  he  will 
bring  a  deer  or  maybe  a  big  black  boar  and 
there  will  be  feasting  in  the  great  hall  this 
night,"  said  Marian. 

"Maybe,"  suggested  Marjorie,  lying  flat  and 
peering  into  the  chateau,  "  he  will  kill  the  grand 
lady  with  urns  sword;  and  it  will  be  all  over 
bluggy." 

"Horrible!"  cried  Marian,  closing  her  eyes 
[  98  ] 


and  shuddering.  "Let  us  hope  he  will  be  a 
parfait,  gentil  knight  who  will  be  nice  to  the 
lady  and  tell  her  beautiful  stories  of  the  war- 
riors bold  he  has  killed  for  love  of  her.'* 

"My  boy  doll  got  all  smashed,"  said  Mar- 
jorie;  "and  urns  can't  come  a-widing." 

"A  truly  good  knight  who  got  smashed 
would  arrive  on  his  shield  just  the  same;  he 
would  n't  let  anything  keep  him  from  coming 
back  to  his  lady." 

"If  urns  got  all  killed  dead,  would  urns  come 
back?" 

"He  would;  he  most  certainly  would!" 
declared  Marian  convincingly.  "And  there 
would  be  a  beautiful  funeral,  probably  at 
night,  and  the  other  knights  would  march  to 
the  grave  bearing  torches.  And  they  would 
repeat  a  vow  to  avenge  his  death  and  the  slug- 
horn  would  sound  and  off  they'd  go." 

"And  urns  lady  would  be  lonesome  some 
more,"  sighed  Marjorie. 

[    99    ] 


"Oh,  that's  nothing!  Ladies  have  to  get 
used  to  being  lonesome  when  knights  go  riding. 
They  must  sit  at  home  and  knit  or  make  beau- 
tiful tapestries  to  show  the  knights  when  they 
come  home." 

"Marjorie  not  like  to  be  lonesome.  What  if 
Dolly  est  sit  in  the  shotum  — " 

"Chateau  is  more  elegant;  though  *  shotum' 
is  flavorsome  and  colorful.  Come  to  think  of  it 
*  shotum'  is  just  as  good.  Dolly  must  sit  and 
keep  sitting.  She  could  n't  go  out  to  look  for 
her  knight  without  committing  a  grave  social 
error." 

These  matters  having  been  disposed  of, 
Marjorie  thought  a  stable  should  be  built  for 
the  knights'  horses,  and  they  began  scoop- 
ing sand  to  that  end.  Marian's  eyes  rested 
dreamily  upon  distant  prospects.  The  cool  airs 
of  early  morning  were  still  stirring,  and  here 
and  there  a  white  sail  floated  lazily  on  the  blue 
water.  The  sandy  beach  lay  only  a  short  dis- 
[  100  ] 


tance  from  Mrs.  Waring's  house,  whose  red 
roof  was  visible  through  a  cincture  of  maples 
on  the  bluff  above. 

"If  knights  comes  widing  to  our  shotum  and 
holler  for  urns  shootolain,  would  you  holler  to 
come  in?"  asked  Marjorie,  from  the  stable 
wall. 

"It  would  be  highly  improper  for  a  chate- 
laine to  *  holler ' ;  but  if  I  were  there,  I  should 
order  the  drawbridge  to  be  lowered,  and  I 
should  bid  my  knight  lift  the  lid  of  the  coal- 
bucket  thing  they  always  wear  on  their  heads, 
—  you  know  how  they  look  in  the  picture 
books,  — and  then  ask  him  what  tidings  he 
brought.  You  always  ask  for  tidings." 

"Does  urns?  Me  would  ask  urns  for  candy, 
and  new  hats  with  long  fithery  feathers;  and 
urns  — " 

"Hail,  ladies  of  the  Lake!  May  a  lone 
harper  descend  and  graciously  vouchsafe  a 


song? 


[  101  ] 


From  the  top  of  the  willow -lined  bluff 
behind  them  came  a  voice  with  startling 
abruptness.  In  their  discussion  of  the  proprie- 
ties of  chateau  life  they  had  forgotten  the  rest 
of  the  world,  and  it  was  disconcerting  thus  to 
be  greeted  from  the  unknown. 

"  Is  it  urns  knight  come  walking?  "  whispered 
Marjorie,  glancing  round  guardedly. 

Marian  jumped  up  and  surveyed  the  over- 
hanging willow  screen  intently.  She  discerned 
through  the  shrubbery  a  figure  in  gray,  sup- 
ported by  a  tightly  sheathed  umbrella.  A  nar- 
row-brimmed straw  hat  and  a  pair  of  twin- 
kling eye-glasses  attached  to  the  most  familiar 
countenance  in  the  Commonwealth  now  con- 
tributed to  a  partial  portrait  of  the  lone  harper. 
Marian,  having  heard  from  her  sister  and 
Mrs.  Waring  of  the  Poet's  advent,  was  able 
to  view  this  apparition  without  surprise. 

"  Come  down,  O  harper,  and  gladden  us  with 
song!"  she  called. 

[    102    ] 


"I  have  far  to  go  ere  the  day  end;  but  I 
bring  writings  for  one  whom  men  call  fair." 

He  tossed  a  long  envelope  toward  them;  the 
breeze  caught  and  held  it,  then  dropped  it  close 
to  the  chateau.  Marjorie  ran  to  pick  it  up. 

"Miss  Agnew,"  said  the  Poet,  lifting  his 
hat,  "a  young  gentleman  will  pass  this  way 
shortly;  I  believe  him  to  be  a  person  of  merit. 
He  will  come  overseas  from  a  far  country,  and 
answer  promptly  to  the  name  of  Frederick. 
Consider  that  you  have  been  properly  intro- 
duced by  the  contents  of  yonder  packet  and 
bid  him  welcome  in  my  name." 

"Urns  a  cwazy  man,"  Marjorie  announced 
in  disgust.  "Urns  the  man  what  told  a  funny 
story  at  Auntie  Waring's  party  and  then 
runned  off." 

The  quivering  of  the  willows  already  marked 
the  Poet's  passing.    He  had  crossed  the  lake 
to  the  Waring  cottage,  Marian  surmised,  and 
was  now  returning  thither. 
[    103    ] 


Marjorie,  uninterested  in  letters,  which,  she 
had  observed,  frequently  made  people  cry, 
attacked  with  renewed  zeal  the  problem  of 
housing  the  knights'  horses,  while  Marian 
opened  the  long  envelope  and  drew  out  hah*  a 
dozen  blue  onion-skin  letter-sheets  and  settled 
herself  to  read.  She  read  first  with  pleasurable 
surprise  and  then  with  bewilderment.  Poetry, 
she  had  heard  somewhere,  should  be  read  out 
of  doors,  and  clearly  these  verses  were  of  that 
order;  and  quite  as  unmistakably  this,  of  all 
the  nooks  and  corners  in  the  world,  was  the 
proper  spot  in  which  to  make  the  acquaint- 
ance of  these  particular  verses.  Indeed,  it 
seemed  possible,  by  a  lifting  of  the  eyes,  to 
verify  the  impressions  they  recorded,  —  the 
blue  arch,  the  gnarled  boughs  of  the  beeches, 
the  overhanging  sycamores,  the  distant  daisy- 
starred  pastures  running  down  to  meet  the 
clear  water.  Such  items  as  these  were  read- 
ily intelligible;  but  she  found  dancing  through 
[  104  ] 


all  the  verses  a  figure  that  under  various  en- 
dearing names  was  the  dea  ex  machina  of 
every  scene;  and  this  seemed  irreconcilable 
with  the  backgrounds  afforded  by  the  imme- 
diate landscape.  Pomona  had,  it  appeared,  at 
some  time  inspected  the  apple  harvest  in  this 
neighborhood :  — 

The  dew  flashed  from  her  sandals  gold 
As  down  the  orchard  aisles  she  sped;  r— 

or  this  same  delightful  divinity  became  Diana, 
her  arrows  cast  aside,  smashing  a  tennis  ball, 
or  once  again  paddling  a  canoe  through  wind- 
milled  water  into  the  flames  of  a  dying  Septem- 
ber sun.  Or,  the  bright  doors  of  dawn  swinging 
wide,  down  the  steps  tripped  this  same  incred- 
ible young  person  taunting  the  waiting  hours 
for  their  delay.  Was  it  possible  that  her  own 
early  morning  dives  from  Mrs.  Waring's  dock 
could  have  suggested  this! 

Marian  read  hurriedly;  then  settled  herself 
for  the  more  deliberate  perusal  that  these  picto- 
[    105    ] 


rial  stanzas  demanded.  It  was  with  a  feeling 
of  unreality  that  she  envisaged  every  point  the 
slight,  graceful  verses  described.  Where  was 
there  another  orchard  that  stole  down  to  a 
lake's  edge;  or  where  could  Atalanta  ever  have 
indulged  herself  at  tennis  to  the  applause  of 
rapping  woodpeckers  if  not  in  the  court  by  the 
casino  on  the  other  side  of  the  lake?  The  Poet 
—  that  is,  the  Poet  All  the  People  Loved  — 
was  not  greatly  given  to  the  invoking  of  gods 
and  goddesses;  and  this  was  not  his  stroke  — 
unless  he  were  playing  some  practical  joke, 
which,  to  be  sure,  was  quite  possible.  But  she 
felt  herself  in  contact  with  some  one  very  differ- 
ent from  the  Poet;  with  quite  another  poet  who 
sped  Pomona  down  orchard  aisles  catching  at 
the  weighted  boughs  for  the  joy  of  hearing  the 
thump  of  falling  apples,  and  turning  with  a 
laugh  to  glance  at  the  shower  of  ruddy  fruit. 
A  lively  young  person,  this  Pomona;  a  spirited 
and  agile  being,  half -real,  half -mythical.  A 
[  106  ] 


series  of  quatrains,  under  the  caption  "In 
September,"  described  the  many-named  god- 
dess as  the  unknown  poet  had  observed  her  in 
her  canoe  at  night :  — 

I  watched  afar  her  steady  blade 
Flash  in  the  path  the  moon  had  made, 
And  saw  the  stars  on  silvery  ripples 
Shine  clear  and  dance  and  faint  and  fade. 

Then  through  the  windless  night  I  heard 
Her  song  float  toward  me,  dim  and  blurred; 

'T  was  like  a  call  to  vanished  summers 
From  a  lost,  summer-seeking  bird. 

There  were  many  canoes  on  Waupegan; 
without  turning  her  head  she  counted  a  dozen 
flashing  paddles.  And  there  were  many  girls 
who  played  capital  tennis,  or  who  were  quite 
capable  of  sprinting  gracefully  down  the  aisles 
of  fruitful  orchards.  She  had  remained  at  the 
lake  late  the  previous  year,  and  had  perhaps 
shaken  apple  boughs  when  in  flight  through 
orchards ;  and  she  had  played  tennis  diligently 
and  had  paddled  her  canoe  on  many  September 
[  107  ] 


nights  through  the  moon's  path  and  over  quiv- 
ering submerged  stars;  and  yet  it  was  incon- 
ceivable that  her  performances  had  attracted 
the  attention  of  any  one  capable  of  transferring 
them  to  rhyme.  It  would  be  pleasant,  though, 
to  be  the  subject  of  verses  like  these!  Once, 
during  her  college  days,  she  had  moved  a  young 
gentleman  to  song,  but  the  amatory  verses  she 
had  evoked  from  his  lyre  had  been  pitiful  stuff 
that  had  offended  her  critical  sense.  These 
blue  sheets  bore  a  very  different  message  — 
delicate  and  fanciful,  with  a  nice  restraint 
under  their  buoyancy. 

While  the  Poet  had  said  that  the  author  of 
the  verses  would  arrive  shortly,  she  had  taken 
this  as  an  expression  of  the  make-believe  in 
which  he  constantly  indulged  in  his  writings; 
but  one  of  the  canoes  she  had  been  idly  ob- 
serving now  bore  unmistakably  toward  the 
cove. 

Marjorie  called  for  assistance  and  Marian 
[  108  ] 


thrust  the  blue  sheets  into  her  belt  and  busied 
herself  with  perplexing  architectural  problems. 
Marjorie's  attention  was  distracted  a  moment 
later  by  the  approaching  canoe. 

"Aunt  Marian!"  she  chirruped,  pointing 
with  a  sand-encrusted  finger,  "more  foolish 
mans  coming  with  glad  tidings.  Urns  should 
come  by  horses,  not  by  urns  canoe." 

"We  mustn't  be  too  particular  how  urns 
come,  Marjorie,"  replied  Marian  glancing  up 
with  feigned  carelessness.  "It's  the  knights' 
privilege  to  come  as  they  will.  Many  a  maiden 
sits  waiting  just  as  we  are  and  no  knight  ever 
comes." 

"When  urns  comes  they  might  knock  down 
our  house  —  maybe?  "  She  tacked  on  the  query 
with  so  quaint  a  turn  that  Marian  laughed. 

"We  must  n't  grow  realistic!  We  must  pre- 
tend it 's  play,  and  keep  pretending  that  they 
will  be  kind  and  considerate  gentlemen." 

Her  own  efforts  to  pretend  that  they  were 
[  109  ] 


building  a  stable  for  the  steeds  of  Arthur's 
knights  did  not  conceal  her  curiosity  as  to  a 
young  man  who  had  driven  his  craft  very  close 
inshore,  and  now,  after  a  moment's  scrutiny 
of  the  cove,  chose  a  spot  for  landing  and  sent 
the  canoe  with  a  whish  up  the  sandy  beach  half 
out  of  the  water. 

He  jumped  out  and  begged  their  pardon  as 
Marjorie  planted  herself  defensively  before  the 
castle. 

"  Urns  can  go  'way !  Urns  did  n't  come  widing 
on  urns  horse  like  my  story  book." 

"I  apologize!  Not  being  Neptune  I  could 
n't  ride  my  horse  through  the  water.  And  be- 
sides I  'm  merely  obeying  orders.  I  was  told  to 
appear  here  at  ten  o'clock,  sharp,  by  a  gentle- 
man I  paddled  over  from  the  village  and  left  on 
Mrs.  Waring's  dock  an  hour  ago.  He  gave  me 
every  assurance  that  I  should  be  received  hos- 
pitably, but  if  I'm  intruding  I  shall  proceed 
farther  upon  the  wine-dark  sea." 
[  110  ] 


THE    APPROACHING    CANOE 


"Is  urns  name  Fwedwick?"  asked  Marjorie. 

Fulton  controlled  with  difficulty  an  impulse 
to  laugh  at  the  child's  curious  twist  of  his  name, 
but  admitted  gravely  that  such,  indeed,  was 
the  case. 

"Then  urns  can  stay,"  said  Marjorie  in  a 
tone  of  resignation,  and  returned  to  her  build- 
ing. 

Marian,  who,  during  his  colloquy  with  Mar- 
jorie, had  risen  and  was  brushing  the  sand 
from  her  skirt,  now  spoke  for  the  first  time. 

"It's  hardly  possible  you're  looking  for  me 
—  I'm  Miss  Agnew." 

He  bowed  profoundly. 

"A  distinguished  man  of  letters  assured  me 
that  I  should  find  him  here,"  the  young  man 
explained  as  he  drew  on  a  blue  serge  coat  he 
had  thrown  out  of  the  canoe;  "but  unless  he 
is  hiding  in  the  bushes  he  has  played  me  false. 
Such  being  the  case  I  can't  do  less  than  offer  to 
withdraw  if  my  presence  is  annoying." 

[  in  i 


The  faint  mockery  of  these  sentences  was 
relieved  by  the  mischievous  twinkle  in  his 
eyes.  They  were  very  dark  eyes,  and  his  hair 
was  intensely  black  and  brushed  back  from  his 
forehead  smoothly.  His  face  was  dark  even 
to  swarthiness  and  his  cheek  bones  were  high 
and  a  trifle  prominent. 

He  was  dressed  for  the  open:  white  ducks, 
canvas  shoes,  and  a  flannel  shirt  with  soft  col- 
lar and  a  scarlet  tie. 

In  spite  of  his  offer  to  withdraw  if  his  pres- 
ence proved  ungrateful  to  the  established  ten- 
ants of  the  cove,  it  occurred  to  Marian  that 
he  was  not,  apparently,  expecting  to  be  re- 
buffed. Marjorie,  satisfied  that  the  stranger  in 
no  way  menaced  her  peace,  was  addressing 
herself  with  new  energy  to  the  refashioning  of 
the  stable  walls  along  lines  recommended  by 
Marian. 

"The  ways  of  the  Poet  are  inscrutable," 
observed  Fulton;  "  he  told  me  your  name  and 
[  112  ] 


spoke  in  the  highest  terms  of  your  kindness 
of  heart  and  tolerance  of  stupidity." 

"  He  was  more  sparing  of  facts  in  warning  me 
of  your  approach.  He  said  your  name  would 
be  Frederick,  as  though  the  birds  would  supply 
the  rest  of  it." 

"Very  likely  that's  the  way  of  the  illustrious 
—  to  assume  that  we  are  all  as  famous  as  them- 
selves; highly  flattering,  but  calculated  to  de- 
ceive. As  the  birds  don't  know  me,  I  will  say 
that  my  surname  is  Fulton.  A  poor  and  an  ill- 
favored  thing,  but  mine  own." 

"It  quite  suffices,"  replied  Marian  in  his 
own  key.  "We  have  built  a  chateau,"  she  ex- 
plained, "and  the  chatelaine  is  even  now  gaz- 
ing sadly  upon  the  waters  hoping  that  her  true 
knight  will  appear.  We  have  mixed  metaphor 
and  history  most  unforgivably  —  a  French 
chateau,  set  here  on  an  American  lake  in  readi- 
ness for  the  Knights  of  the  Round  Table." 

"We  mustn't  quibble  over  details  in  such 
f  113  1 


matters;  it 's  the  spirit  of  the  thing  that  counts. 
I  can  see  that  Marjorie  isn't  troubled  by 
anachronisms." 

The  blue  sheets  containing,  presumably, 
this  young  man's  verses,  were  still  in  her  belt, 
and  their  presence  there  did  not  add  to  her  com- 
fort. Of  course  he  might  not  be  the  real  author 
of  those  tributes  to  the  lake's  divinities.  His 
appearance  did  not  strongly  support  the  sus- 
picion. The  young  man  who  had  sent  her 
flowers  accompanied  by  verses  on  various  occa- 
sions was  an  anaemic  young  person  who  would 
never  have  entrusted  himself  to  so  tricksy  a 
bark  as  a  canoe.  Frederick  Fulton  was  of  a 
more  heroic  mould ;  she  thought  it  quite  likely 
that  he  could  shoulder  his  canoe  and  march  off 
with  it  if  it  pleased  him  to  do  so.  He  looked 
capable  of  doing  many  things  besides  scribbling 
verses.  His  manner,  as  she  analyzed  it,  left 
nothing  to  be  desired.  While  he  was  enjoying 
this  encounter  to  the  full,  as  his  ready  smile 
[  114  ] 


assured  her,  he  did  not  presume  upon  her  tol- 
erance, but  seemed  satisfied  to  let  her  pre- 
scribe the  terms  of  their  acquaintance.  This 
was  a  lark  of  some  kind,  and  whether  he  had 
connived  at  the  meeting,  or  whether  he  was  as 
much  in  the  dark  as  she  as  to  the  Poet's  pur- 
pose in  bringing  them  together,  remained  a 
mystery. 

She  found  a  seat  on  a  log  near  the  engrossed 
Marjorie,  and  Fulton  settled  himself  comfort- 
ably on  the  sand. 

"This  has  been  a  day  of  strange  meetings," 
he  began.  "  I  really  had  no  intention  of  coming 
to  Waupegan;  and  I  was  astonished  to  find  our 
friend  the  Poet  on  the  hotel  veranda  this  morn- 
ing. He  had  told  me  to  come;  —  it  was  rather 
odd—" 

"Oh,  he  told  you  to  come!" 

"In  town,  two  days  ago  he  suggested  it.  I 
wonder  if  he  's  in  the  habit  of  doing  that  sort 
of  thing." 


"It  would  hardly  be  polite  for  me  to  criticize 
him  now  that  he  has  introduced  us.  I  fear  we 
shall  have  to  make  the  best  of  it!" 

"Oh,  I  was  n't  thinking  of  it  in  that  way!" 

They  regarded  each  other  with  searching 
inquiry  and  then  laughed.  Her  possession  of 
the  verses  had  already  advertised  itself  to  him; 
she  saw  his  eyes  rest  upon  them  carelessly  for 
an  instant  and  then  he  disregarded  them;  and 
this  pleased  her.  If  he  were  their  author  —  if, 
possibly,  he  had  written  them  of  her  —  she  ap- 
proved of  his  good  breeding  in  ignoring  them. 

"I  know  this  part  of  the  world  better  than 
almost  any  other,"  he  went  on,  clasping  his 
hands  over  his  knees.  "I  was  born  only  ten 
miles  from  here  on  a  farm;  and  I  fished  here 
a  lot  when  I  was  a  boy." 

"But,  of  course,  you've  escaped  from  the 
farm  into  the  larger  world  or  the  Poet  would 
n't  know  you." 

"Well,  you  see,  I'm  a  newspaper  reporter 


down  at  the  capital  and  reporters  know  every- 
body." 

"Oh,  the  Poet  doesn't  know  everybody; 
though  everybody  knows  him.  Perhaps  we'd 
better  pass  that.  Tell  me  some  more  about 
your  early  adventures  on  the  lake." 

"You  have  heard  all  that 's  worth  telling.  We 
farm  boys  used  to  come  over  and  fish  before  the 
city  men  filched  all  the  bass  and  left  only  sun- 
fish  and  suckers.  Then  I  grew  up  and  went  to 
the  State  Agricultural  School  —  to  fit  me  for  a 
literary  career !  —  and  I  did  n't  get  here  again 
until  last  fall  when  my  paper  gave  me  a  vaca- 
tion and  I  spent  a  fortnight  at  the  farm  and 
used  to  ride  over  here  on  my  bicycle  every 
morning  to  watch  the  summer  resorters  and 
read  books." 

"It's  strange  I  never  saw  you,"  said  Marian, 
"for  I  was  here  last  fall.  My  own  memories  of 
the  pioneers  go  back  almost  to  the  Indians. 
My  father  used  to  own  that  red-roofed  cottage 


you  see  across  the  lake;  and  I've  tumbled  into 
the  water  from  every  point  in  sight." 

"September  and  June  are  the  best  months 
here,  I  think.  It  was  all  much  nicer,  though, 
before  the  place  became  so  popular." 

"  Hardly  a  gracious  remark,  seeing  that  Mar- 
jorie  and  I  are  here,  and  all  these  cottagers  are 
friends  of  ours!" 

"I  haven't  the  slightest  objection  to  you 
and  Marjorie.  You  fit  into  the  landscape  de- 
lightfully —  give  it  tone  and  color;  but  I  was 
thinking  of  the  noisy  people  at  the  inns  down 
by  the  village.  They  seem  rather  unnecessary. 
The  Poet  and  I  agreed  about  that  this  morning 
while  we  were  looking  for  a  quiet  place  for  an 
after-breakfast  smoke." 

"It  must  be  quite  fine  to  know  him  —  really 
know  him,"  she  said  musingly. 

"Yes;  but  before  you  grow  too  envious  of  my 
acquaintance  I'll  have  to  confess  that  I've 
known  him  less  than  a  week." 
[    118    ] 


"A  great  deal  can  happen  in  a  week,"  she 
remarked  absently. 

"A  great  deal  has!"  he  returned  quickly. 

This  seemed  to  be  rather  leading;  but  a  cry 
for  help  from  Marjorie  provided  a  diversion. 

Fulton  jumped  up  and  ran  to  the  perplexed 
builder's  aid,  neatly  repaired  a  broken  wall, 
and  when  he  had  received  the  child's  grave 
thanks  reseated  himself  at  Marian's  feet.  The 
blue  onion-skin  paper  had  disappeared  from 
her  belt;  he  caught  her  in  the  act  of  crumpling 
the  sheets  into  her  sleeve. 

With  their  disappearance  she  felt  her  courage 
returning.  His  confessions  as  to  the  farm,  the 
university,  the  newspaper — created  an  outline 
which  she  meant  to  encourage  him  to  fill  in. 
Journalism,  like  war  and  the  labors  of  those 
who  go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships,  suggests 
romance;  and  Marian  had  never  known  a 
reporter  before. 

"I  should  think  it  would  be  great  fun  work- 
[  119  ] 


ing  on  a  newspaper,  and  knowing  things  before 
they  happen.'* 

"And  things  that  never  happen!" 

She  was  quick  to  seize  upon  this. 

"The  imagination  must  enter  into  all  writ- 
ing —  even  facts,  history.  Bryant  was  a  news- 
paper man,  and  he  wrote  poetry,  but  I  heard  in 
school  that  he  was  a  very  good  editor,  too." 

"I'm  not  an  editor  and  nobody  has  called 
me  a  poet;  but  the  suggestion  pleases  me,"  he 
said. 

"If  our  own  Poet  offered  you  a  leaf  of  his 
laurel,  that  would  help  establish  your  claims, 
—  set  you  up  in  business,  so  to  speak." 

"I  should  hasten  to  return  it  before  it  with- 
ered !  My  little  experiments  in  rhyme  are  not 
of  the  wreath-winning  kind." 

"Then  you  do  write  verses!" 

"Yards!"  he  confessed  shamelessly. 

She  was  taken  aback  by  this  bold  admission. 
His  tone  and  manner  implied  that  he  set  no 
[  120  ] 


great  store  by  his  performances,  and  this 
piqued  her.  It  seemed  like  a  commentary  on 
her  critical  judgment  which  had  found  them 
good.  Fulton  now  became  impersonal  and 
philosophical. 

"It's  a  great  thing  to  have  done  what  our 
Poet  has  done  —  give  to  the  purely  local  a 
touch  tnat  makes  it  universal.  That's  what 
art  does  when  it  has  heart  behind  it,  and  there 's 
the  value  of  provincial  literature.  Hundreds  of 
men  had  seen  just  what  he  saw,  —  the  same 
variety  of  types  and  individuals  against  this 
Western  landscape,  —  but  it  was  left  for  him 
to  set  them  forth  with  just  the  right  stroke. 
And  he  has  done  other  things,  too,  besides  the 
genre  studies  that  make  him  our  own  particu- 
lar Burns;  he  has  sung  of  days  like  this  when 
hope  rises  high,  and  sung  of  them  beautifully; 
and  he  has  preached  countless  little  sermons 
of  cheer  and  contentment  and  aspiration.  And 
he 's  the  first  poet  who  ever  really  understood 


children  —  wrote  not  merely  of  them  but  to 
them.  He  's  the  poet  of  a  thousand  scrapbooks ! 
I  came  up  on  a  late  train  last  night  and  got  to 
talking  to  a  stranger  who  told  me  he  was  on  his 
way  to  visit  his  old  home;  pulled  one  of  the 
Poet's  songs  of  June  out  of  his  pocket  and  asked 
me  to  read  it;  said  he'd  cut  it  out  of  a  newspa- 
per that  had  come  to  him  wrapped  round  a 
pair  of  shoes  in  some  forsaken  village  in  Texas, 
and  that  it  had  made  him  homesick  for  a  sight 
of  the  farm  where  he  was  born.  The  old  fellow 
grew  tearful  about  it,  and  almost  wrung  a  sob 
out  of  me.  He  was  carrying  that  clipping 
pinned  to  his  railway  ticket  —  in  a  way  it  was 
his  ticket  home." 

"  Of  course  our  Poet  has  the  power  to  move 
people  like  that,"  murmured  Marian.  "  It  's 
genius,  a  gift  of  the  gods." 

"He's  been  able  to  do  it  without  ever  cheap- 
ening himself;  there's  never  any  suggestion  of 
that  mawkishness  we  hear  in  vaudeville  songs 


that  implore  us  to  write  home  to  mother  to- 
night !  He  takes  the  simplest  theme  and  makes 
literature  of  it." 

Marian  was  thinking  of  her  talk  with  the  Poet 
at  Mrs.  Waring's  garden-party.  Strange  to 
say,  it  seemed  more  difficult  to  express  her  dis- 
dain of  romance  and  poetry  to  this  young  man 
than  it  had  been  to  the  Poet.  And  yet  he  evi- 
dently accepted  unquestioningly  the  Poet's 
philosophy  of  life,  which  she  had  dismissed 
contemptuously,  and  in  which,  she  assured 
herself,  she  did  not  believe  to-day  any  more 
than  she  did  a  week  ago.  The  incident  of  a  pil- 
grim from  Texas  with  a  poem  attached  to  his 
railway  ticket  had  its  touch  of  sentiment  and 
pathos,  but  it  did  not  weigh  heavily  against 
the  testimony  of  experience  which  had  proved 
in  her  own  observation  that  life  is  perplexing 
and  difficult,  and  that  poetry  and  romance  are 
only  a  lure  and  mesh  to  delude  and  betray  the 
trustful. 

[    123    ] 


"Poets  have  a  good  deal  to  fight  against 
these  days,"  she  said,  wishing  to  state  her  dis- 
sent as  kindly  as  possible.  "The  Bible  is  full  of 
poetry,  but  it  has  lost  its  hold  on  the  people; 
it 's  like  an  outworn  sun  that  no  longer  lights 
and  warms  the  world.  I  wish  it  were  n't  so; 
but  unfortunately  we're  all  pretty  helpless 
when  it  comes  to  the  iron  hoofs  of  the  Time- 
Spirit." 

"Oh!"  he  exclaimed,  sitting  erect,  "we 
must  n't  make  the  mistake  of  thinking  the 
Time-Spirit  a  new  invention.  We're  lucky  to 
live  in  the  twentieth  century  when  it  goes  on 
rubber  heels;  —  when  people  are  living  poetry 
more  and  talking  about  it  less.  Why,  the  spirit 
of  the  Bible  has  just  gone  to  work !  I  was  writ- 
ing an  account  of  a  new  summer  camp  for  chil- 
dren the  day  before  I  came  up  —  one  of  those 
Sunday  supplement  pieces  around  a  lot  of  pic- 
tures; and  it  occurred  to  me  as  I  watched 
youngsters,  who  had  never  seen  green  grass 
[  124  ] 


before,  having  the  time  of  their  lives,  that  such 
philanthropies  did  n't  exist  in  the  good  old  days 
when  people  dusted  their  Bibles  oftener  than 
they  do  now.  There 's  a  difference  between  the 
Bible  as  a  fetish  and  as  a  working  plan  for  daily 
use.  Preaching  is  n't  left  to  the  men  who  stand 
up  in  pulpits  in  black  coats  on  Sundays;  there 's 
preaching  in  all  the  magazines  and  newspapers 
all  the  time.  For  example,  my  paper  raises 
money  every  summer  to  send  children  into 
the  country;  and  then  starts  another  fund 
to  buy  them  Christmas  presents.  The  apos- 
tles themselves  didn't  do  much  better  than 
that!" 

"Of  course  there  are  many  agencies  and  a 
great  deal  of  generosity,"  replied  Marian  color- 
lessly. The  young  men  she  knew  were  not  in  the 
habit  of  speaking  of  the  Bible  or  of  religion  in 
this  fashion.  Religion  had  never  made  any 
strong  appeal  to  her  and  she  had  dabbled  in 
philanthropy  fitfully  without  enthusiasm. 
[  125  ] 


Fulton's  direct  speech  made  some  response 
necessary  and  she  tried  to  reply  with  an  equally 
frank  confidence. 

"I  suppose  I'm  a  sort  of  heathen;  I  don't 
know  what  a  pantheist  is,  but  I  think  I  must 
be  one." 

"Oh,  you  can  be  a  pantheist  without  being  a 
heathen !  There 's  a  natural  religion  that  we  all 
subscribe  to,  whether  we're  conscious  of  it  or 
not.  There 's  no  use  bothering  about  definitions 
or  quarreling  with  anybody's  church  or  creed. 
We're  getting  beyond  that;  it's  the  thing  we 
make  of  ourselves  that  counts;  and  when  it 
comes  to  the  matter  of  worship,  I  suppose 
every  one  who  looks  up  at  a  blue  sky  like  that, 
and  knows  it  to  be  good,  is  performing  a  sort 
of  ritual  and  saying  a  prayer." 

There  was  nothing  in  the  breezy,  exultant 

verses  she  had  thrust  into  her  sleeve  to  prepare 

her  for  such  statements  as  these.    While  he 

spoke  simply  and  half  -  smilingly,  as  though 

[    126    ] 


to  minimize  the  seriousness  of  his  statements, 
his  utterances  had  an  undeniable  ring  of  sincer- 
ity. He  was  provokingly  at  ease  —  this  dark 
young  gentleman  who  had  been  cast  by  the 
waters  upon  this  tranquil  beach.  He  was  not 
at  all  like  young  men  who  called  upon  her  and 
made  themselves  agreeable  by  talking  of  the 
theater  or  country  club  dances  or  the  best 
places  to  spend  vacations.  She  could  not  recall 
that  any  one  had  ever  spoken  to  her  before  of 
man's  aspirations  in  the  terms  employed  by 
this  newspaper  reporter. 

Marjorie,  having  prepared  for  the  stabling 
of  all  the  king's  horses  and  all  the  king's  men, 
announced  her  intention  of  contributing  a 
wing  to  the  chateau.  This  called  for  a  confer- 
ence in  which  they  all  participated.  Then, 
when  the  addition  had  been  planned  in  all 
soberness  and  the  child  had  resumed  her  labors, 
Marian  and  Fred  stared  at  the  lake  until  the 
silence  became  oppressive.  Marian  spoke  first, 
[  127  ] 


tossing  the  ball  of  conversation  into  a  new 
direction. 

"You  have  confessed  to  yards  of  verses," 
she  began,  gathering  up  a  handful  of  sand 
which  she  let  slip  through  her  fingers  linger- 
ingly,  catching  the  grains  in  her  palm.  "I've 
seen  —  about  a  yard  of  them." 

Clearly  flirtation  was  not  one  of  his  accom- 
plishments. His  "Oh,  I've  scattered  them 
round  rather  freely,"  ignored  a  chance  to  de- 
clare gracefully  that  she  had  been  the  inspira- 
tion of  those  lyrics,  written  in  a  perfectly  legi- 
ble hand  on  onion-skin  letter-sheets,  that  were 
concealed  in  her  sleeve.  His  indifference  to  the 
opening  she  had  made  for  him  piqued  her. 
She  was  quite  dashed  by  the  calm  tone  in  which 
he  added,  with  no  hint  of  sidling  or  simpering : — 

"I've  written  reams  of  poems  about  you." 

(He  might  as  well  have  said  that  he  had  scraped 

the  ice  off  her  sidewalk  or  carried  coal  into  her 

cellar,  for  all  the  thrill  she  derived  from  his 

[    128    ] 


admission.)  "I  hope  you  won't  be  displeased; 
but  when  I  was  ranging  the  lake  last  Septem- 
ber we  seemed  to  find  the  same  haunts  and  to 
be  interested  in  the  same  sort  of  thing,  and 
it  kept  me  busy  dodging  you,  I  can  tell  you! 
I  exhausted  the  Classical  Dictionary  finding 
names  for  you;  and  it  was  n't  any  trouble  at 
all  to  make  verses  about  you.  I  was  really 
astonished  to  find  how  necessary  you  were  to 
the  completion  of  my  pen-and-ink  sketches  of 
all  this,"  —  a  wave  of  the  arm  placed  the  lake 
shores  in  evidence,  —  "I  liked  you  best  in 
action;  when  the  spirit  moved  you  to  run  or 
drive  your  canoe  over  the  water.  You  do  all  the 
outdoor  things  as  though  you  had  never  done 
anything  else;  it 's  a  joy  to  watch  you!  I  was 
sitting  on  a  fence  one  day  over  there  in  Mrs. 
Waring's  orchard  and  you  ran  by,  —  so  near 
that  I  could  hear  the  swish  of  your  skirts,  — 
and  you  made  a  high  jump  for  a  bough  and 
shook  down  the  apples  and  ran  off  laughing 
[  129  ] 


THE    POET 


like  a  boy  afraid  of  being  caught.  I  pulled  out 
my  notebook  and  scribbled  seven  stanzas  on 
that  little  incident." 

Any  admiration  that  was  conveyed  by  these 
frankly  uttered  sentences  was  of  the  most  im- 
personal sort  conceivable.  She  was  not  used  to 
being  treated  in  this  fashion.  Even  his  manner 
of  asking  her  pardon  for  his  temerariousness  in 
apostrophizing  her  in  his  verses  had  lacked,  in 
her  critical  appraisement  of  it,  the  humility  a 
self-respecting  young  woman  had  a  right  to 
demand  of  a  young  poet  who  observes  her 
without  warrant,  is  pleased  to  admire  her  ath- 
letic prowess,  her  ways  and  her  manners,  and 
puts  her  into  his  verses  as  coolly  as  he  might 
pick  a  flower  from  the  wayside  and  wear  it 
in  his  coat. 

"Then  you  used  me  merely  to  give  human  in- 
terest to  your  poems;  any  girl  running  through 
Mrs.  Waring's  orchard  and  snatching  at  the 
apples  would  have  done  just  as  well?" 
[    130    ] 


"Oh,  I  should  n't  say  that,"  he  replied,  un- 
abashed; "but  even  the  poorest  worm  of  a 
scribbler  has  to  have  an  ideal  and  you  supplied 
mine.  You  were  like  a  model  who  strolls  along 
just  when  it  occurs  to  the  painter  that  his  land- 
scape needs  a  figure  to  set  it  off.  You  don't 
mind,  I  hope?" 

This  made  it  necessary  for  her  to  assure  him 
in  as  few  words  as  possible  that  she  did  n't  in 
the  least  object  to  his  view  of  the  matter;  and 
she  added,  not  without  a  trace  of  irony,  that 
she  was  always  glad  to  be  of  use;  that  if  she 
could  further  the  cause  of  art  in  any  way  she 
was  ready  to  do  it. 

"Please  don't;  that  hurt  a  little!  By  the 
way,  the  Poet  told  me  I  ought  to  know  you. 
He  recommended  you  in  the  noblest  terms.  I 
see  now  what  was  in  his  mind;  he  thought 
I  needed  your  gentle  chastening." 

"It's  more  likely  he  thought  it  well  for  you 
to  see  your  ideal  shattered!  It's  too  bad,  for 
[  131  ] 


the  sake  of  your  ambitions,  that  I  did  n't  re- 
main just  an  unknown  girl  in  an  orchard  — 
who  suggested  Pomona  inspecting  her  crops 
and  then  vanished  forever." 

"Oh,  I  had  to  know  you;  it  was  inevitable," 
he  replied  with  irritating  resignation.  "You 
see  I  've  written  about  you  in  prose,  too ;  you  've 
been  immensely  provocative  and  stimulating. 
My  best  prose,  as  well  as  my  only  decent  jin- 
gles, has  had  you  for  a  subject.  I  laid  myself 
out  to  describe  you  at  the  tennis  tournament 
last  fall.  Next  to  watching  you  run  through 
an  orchard  trippingly,  like  one  of  Swinburne's 
long  lines,  I  like  you  best  when  you  show  your 
snappy  stroke  with  the  racket  and  make  a 
champion  look  well  to  her  knitting." 

She  turned  crimson  at  this,  remembering 
very  well  the  "  Chronicle's  "  report  of  the  tennis 
match,  which  she  had  cut  out  and  still  treasured 
in  her  portfolio.  Clearly,  her  obligations  to  this 
impudent  young  man  were  increasing  rapidly. 
[  132  ] 


Marjorie,  seized  with  an  ambition  to  add 
a  new  tower  to  the  chateau,  opportunely  de- 
manded their  assistance.  The  architectural 
integrity  of  the  chateau  was  in  jeopardy  and 
the  proposed  changes  called  for  much  debate 
by  the  elders.  This  consumed  considerable 
time,  and  after  the  new  tower  was  finished  by 
their  joint  labors  they  set  Marjorie  to  work 
constructing  a  moat  which  Fulton  declared  to 
be  essential. 

He  got  on  famously  with  Marjorie ;  and  this 
scored  heavily  in  his  favor  with  Marian.  His 
way  with  the  child  was  informed  with  the 
nicest  tact  and  understanding ;  he  entered  into 
the  spirit  of  the  chateau-building  with  just  the 
earnestness  that  her  young  imagination  de- 
manded. He  promised  to  take  her  canoeing  to 
a  place  where  he  thought  there  might  be  fairies, 
though  he  would  not  go  the  length  of  saying 
that  he  had  seen  them,  to  be  sure,  for  when  peo- 
ple saw  fairies  they  must  never  tell  any  one; 
[  133  ] 


it  would  n't  be  kind  to  the  fairies,  who  got  into 
the  most  dreadful  predicaments  when  human 
folk  talked  about  them.  Marjorie  listened 
big-eyed,  while  he  held  her  sandy  little  fingers. 
Yes;  there  was  something  pleasing  in  this 
young  man,  who  described  tennis  matches  for 
the  sporting  page  of  a  newspaper  or  wrote 
verses  or  spoke  of  religion  or  fairies  all  as  part 
of  the  day's  work. 

"The  Poet  will  think  I've  fallen  into  the 
lake,"  he  remarked  presently.  "The  ride  to 
Mrs.  Waring's  dock  was  a  great  concession  on 
his  part  and  he  expressed  misgivings  as  to  al- 
lowing me  to  paddle  him  back  to  the  inn.  He 's 
waiting  at  this  moment  on  Mrs.  Waring's 
veranda,  hoping  that  I  won't  show  up  with  the 
canoe  so  he  can  take  passage  on  the  steamer 
and  reduce  the  hazards  of  the  journey.  The 
height  of  the  sun  proclaims  the  luncheon  hour, 
and  Marjorie  must  be  hungry.  Won't  you 
honor  my  humble  argosy ! " 
[  134  ] 


Marian  could  think  of  no  good  reason  for  de- 
clining this  invitation,  particularly  after  Mar- 
jorie  had  chirruped  an  immediate  and  grate- 
ful acceptance.  Moreover,  Mr.  Fulton  had 
made  himself  so  agreeable  and  had  contributed 
so  many  elements  to  the  morning's  pleasure, 
that  it  was  not  in  her  heart  to  be  rude  to 
him. 

They  embarked  after  a  promise  had  been 
exacted  by  Marjorie  that  "urns"  should  all 
meet  again  on  the  morrow,  to  perfect  the  moat 
and  build  a  drawbridge. 

"I'm  glad  to  have  an  excuse  for  staying," 
Fulton  declared,  "and  I  hope  I  'm  not  the  man 
to  go  off  and  leave  a  noble  shotum  without  the 
finishing  touches.  We  shall  meet  frequently, 
maid  Marjorie.  In  fact "  —  he  lifted  the  paddle 
and  let  it  drip  with  a  pleasant  tinkle  into  the 
calm  water,  while  he  half -turned  toward 
Marian  —  "I  don't  believe  I'll  ever  go  back 
to  'the  heat  and  dust  and  noise  of  trades.'  As 
[  135  1 


old  Walt  says,  in  effect,  the  earth,  that  is  suf- 
ficient; so  why  not  stay  close  to  it?" 

"Urns  splashed  water  on  me!"  protested 
Marjorie. 

"A  thousand  pardons,  my  young  realist! " 

"The  Poet  and  Elizabeth  are  waving  to  us 
from  the  landing,"  remarked  Marian.  "Per- 
haps you  'd  better  save  the  rest  of  the  perora- 
tion until  to-morrow." 

"  No  unkinder  word  was  ever  spoken ! "  cried 
Pulton  cheerfully,  and  swept  the  light  craft 
forward  with  long,  splashless  strokes. 

VI 

"IT'S  beautifully  kind  of  you  to  want  to 
help;  but  you  see  how  impossible  it  is!" 

"I  don't  like  that  word,"  replied  the  Poet 
patiently.  "Most  things  are  possible  that  we 
really  want  to  do." 

For  two  hours  that  morning  Mrs.  Redfield 
and  he  had  talked  of  her  troubles,  first  with  a 
[  136  ] 


reluctance,  a  wariness  on  both  sides  that 
yielded  gradually  to  the  warmth  of  his  kind- 
ness. However,  on  the  whole,  the  Poet  found 
her  easier  to  talk  to  than  her  husband  had  been. 
She  understood,  as  Redfield  had  not,  that  his 
appearance  in  the  matter  was  not  merely  the 
assertion  of  a  right  inhering  in  an  old  friend- 
ship, but  that  it  was  dictated  by  something  lar- 
ger,—  a  resentment  of  an  apostasy  touching 
intimately  his  own  good  faith  as  a  public 
teacher.  This  attitude  had  not  only  its  poig- 
nancy for  her,  but  it  broadened  the  horizon 
against  which  she  had  been  contemplating  the 
broken  and  distorted  structure  that  had  been 
her  life. 

"I  suppose,"  she  said  bravely,  "that  we 
ought  n't  to  ask  so  much !  We  ought  to  be  pre- 
pared for  calamity ;  then  we  should  n't  break 
under  it  when  the  blow  falls.  When  I  saw  other 
people  in  just  such  troubles  I  used  to  think, 
*  There's  something  that  will  never  come  to 
f  137  1 


me':  I  suppose  Miles  is  right  in  saying  that  I 
have  no  ambition,  that  I  had  become  merely  a 
drag  on  him.  And  I  can  see  his  side  of  it;  there 
was  n't  much  ahead  of  him  but  standing  be- 
hind a  bank  counter  to  the  end  of  his  days. 
The  novels  are  full  of  the  conflicts  between  the 
man  who  wants  to  rise  and  the  woman  without 
wings.  It's  my  misfortune  to  be  one  of  the 
wingless  ones." 

She  was  less  bitter  than  he  expected ;  and  he 
took  courage  from  this  fact.  He  had  hoped  to 
avoid  any  minute  dissection  of  the  situation; 
but  she  had  given  him  a  pretty  full  account  of 
the  whole  affair,  and  he  was  both  dismayed  and 
relieved  to  find  how  trivial  the  details  of  the 
dissension  proved.  She  had  wept  —  beyond 
doubt  there  had  been  tears  —  and  Miles  on  his 
side  had  exhausted  persuasion  before  her  ob- 
stinacy kindled  his  wrath.  The  crux  had  come 
with  his  demand  that  she  should  do  her  part 
toward  cultivating  acquaintances  that  he  be- 
[  138  ] 


lieved  to  be  essential  to  the  success  of  his  new 
undertaking.  She  had  never  known  such  peo- 
ple, she  assured  the  Poet,  feeling  that  he  knew 
she  never  had  and  would  sympathize  with  her 
position.  Miles  had  no  right  to  ask  her  to 
countenance  them,  and  all  that. 

The  Poet  preferred  to  be  amused  by  this. 
The  obnoxious  persons  were  strangers  to  him; 
he  had  merely  heard  of  them;  he  admitted 
that  he  would  never  deliberately  have  chosen 
them  for  intimate  companionship.  And  yet  it 
was  not  so  egregious  a  thing  to  sit  at  the  same 
table  for  an  hour  with  a  man  and  woman  one 
would  n't  care  to  meet  daily. 

"If  there  were  n't  such  people  as  the  Far- 
nams  in  the  world  we'd  never  know  how  to 
appreciate  our  own  kind  of  folks,"  remarked 
the  Poet.  "And  that  fellow  can't  be  so  bad.  I 
heard  only  recently  of  an  instance  of  his  gener- 
osity —  he  made  a  very  handsome  subscription 
to  the  new  children's  hospital.  Men  of  that 
[  139  ] 


stamp  frequently  grow  emotional  when  they  're 
touched  on  the  right  chord." 

"But  you  would  n't  have  Miles  —  the  Miles 
you  used  to  know  —  become  like  that,  or  get 
down  on  his  knees  to  such  people  in  the  hope 
of  getting  some  of  their  money!" 

The  Poet  chuckled. 

"If  Miles  can  pry  that  particular  man  loose 
from  any  of  his  money  I  'd  say  it  proved  that 
Miles  was  right  and  you  were  wrong !  Farnam 
does  n't  carry  his  philanthropy  into  his  busi- 
ness affairs.  He 's  quite  capable  of  eating  your 
lobster  to-night  and  to-morrow  morning  exact- 
ing the  last  ounce  of  flesh  from  the  man  who 
paid  for  it.  It 's  possible  that  Miles  will  pay 
dearly  for  his  daring;  I  understand  that  this 
new  business  is  beset  with  pitfalls." 

"Oh,  I  want  him  to  succeed!  He's  free  now 
to  do  as  he  likes  and  I  hope  he  will  prosper. 
At  any  rate,  Marjorie  and  I  are  not  dragging 
him  down!" 

[    140    ] 


Angry  tears  came  with  this;  the  Poet  looked 
away  to  the  green-fringed  shores.  When  she 
was  calm  again  he  thought  it  wise  to  drop  the 
matter  for  the  present.  At  least  it  was  best  to 
withdraw  to  safe  ground,  from  which  it  might, 
however,  be  possible  to  approach  the  citadel 
obliquely. 

"Marian,"  he  remarked,  "is  a  charming 
girl." 

She  seconded  his  praise  of  her  sister  ar- 
dently, saying  that  Marian  had  been  splendid 
throughout  her  troubles. 

"She  sees  everything  so  clearly;  I  don't 
know  what  I  should  have  done  without  her." 

"She  sees  things  your  way,  then,"  he  ven- 
tured quietly.  "I'm  a  little  afraid  we  always 
prefer  counselors  who  tell  us  we're  doing 
the  right  thing." 

"Oh,  she  reasons  things  out  wonderfully. 
I  hope  she  will  profit  by  my  troubles !  Fortu- 
nately we  're  unlike;  she 's  much  more  practical 
t  141  ] 


than  I  am.  She  has  a  wider  outlook;  I  think  her 
college  training  shows  there.'* 

"We  must  see  to  it  that  she  does  n't  make 
mistakes,"  said  the  Poet,  his  thoughts  revert- 
ing to  his  efforts  to  place  some  new  ideals  where 
Marian  might  contemplate  them  without  sus- 
pecting that  he  was  responsible  for  putting 
them  in  her  way.  The  humorous  aspects  of  his 
intervention  —  and  particularly  his  employ- 
ment of  the  unconscious  Fulton  as  a  missionary 
—  caused  him  to  smile  —  a  smile  which  Mrs. 
Redfield  detected  but  failed  to  understand. 

"I  can  never  look  on  marriage  again  as  I 
used  to,"  she  ventured.  "Most  of  the  good 
things  of  life  have  been  spoiled  for  me." 

"I  can't  agree  to  that:  you  are  less  than 
thirty,  which  is  n't  the  age  at  which  we  can 
afford  to  haul  down  the  flag.  If  I'd  subsided 
at  thirty,  —  had  concluded  that  the  world 
would  never  listen  to  my  little  tin  horn,  —  I 
should  have  missed  most  of  the  joy  of  life. 
[  142  ] 


And  Marian  at  twenty- two  mustn't  be  al- 
lowed to  say  that  the  world  at  best  is  a  dreary 
place.  She  must  n't  be  allowed  to  form  fool- 
ish opinions  of  life  and  destiny  and  call  to 
the  stage-hands  to  drop  the  curtain  the  first 
time  some  actor  misses  his  cue.  And  do  you 
know,"  he  continued  with  the  humor  glinting 
through  his  glasses,  "that  girl  had  the  bad 
manners  to  tell  me  to  my  face  only  a  few  days 
ago  that  there  was  no  substance  to  all  our  poet- 
izing —  that  the  romance  had  been  trampled 
out  of  life !  To  think  of  that  —  at  twenty-two 
or  thirty!" 

"Well," said  Mrs.  Redfield, a  little  defiantly, 
"you  must  remember  that  I've  tried  poetry 
and  romance." 

It  was  clear  from  her  tone  that  she  thought 
this  scored  heavily  on  her  side,  and  offset  any 
blame  that  might  attach  to  her  in  •his  mind. 
She  was  surprised  by  the  quickness  with  which 
he  retorted. 

[    143    ] 


"Ah,  but  have  you!" 

This  was  rather  discouraging  when  she  had 
been  at  such  pains  to  tell  him  the  truth ;  when 
she  had  bared  her  soul  to  him.  She  felt  that  it 
was  unchivalrous  for  him  to  question  her  fair- 
ness when  she  had  been  so  frank. 

"You  can  hardly  say,"  he  went  on,  "that 
you  made  much  of  a  trial  of  romance  when  you 
dropped  it  at  the  first  sign  of  trouble.  Please 
don't  misunderstand  me.  That  letter  you 
wrote  me  during  your  honeymoon  from  this 
very  house  was  in  a  sense  the  declaration  of  a 
faith.  You  meant  to  live  by  it  always;  and  if  no 
troubles  had  ever  come  it  would  have  been  per- 
fectly satisfactory  —  no  doubts,  no  questions ! 
You  were  like  a  mariner  who  does  n't  question 
his  charts  when  the  sea  is  calm;  but  who  begins 
to  doubt  them  when  he  hears  the  breakers 
roaring  on  hidden  reefs.  Ideals  are  no  good  if 
we  have  n't  a  tolerably  strong  faith  in  them. 
I  'm  going  to  tell  you  something  that  may  sur- 
[  144  ] 


prise  you.  You  and  Miles  have  been  an  ideal  of 
mine.  Not  only  was  your  house  with  its  pretty 
garden  and  the  hollyhocks  a  refuge,  but  it  was 
one  of  my  chief  inspirations.  A  good  many 
of  the  best  things  I've  written  came  out  of 
that  little  establishment.  I  was  astonished  the 
other  day,  in  looking  over  my  work  of  the  past 
half-dozen  years,  to  find  how  much  of  you  and 
Miles  there  is  in  it.  And  now  I  feel  that  I  ought 
to  modify  those  things  —  stick  in  footnotes  to 
say  that  the  ideal  home  —  the  ideal  of  happi- 
ness I  had  derived  from  you  —  was  all  a  fraud. 
Just  think  how  that  would  look:  an  asterisk 
tacked  to  the  end  of  every  stanza,  leading  the 
eye  down  to  an  admission  that  my  statements 
were  not  true,  only  poetry,  romance,  a  flimsy 
invention  which  no  one  need  be  deceived 
by!" 

"I  hope,"  she  said  despairingly,  "that  I 
have  n't  lost  everything !  I  Ve  got  to  hold  on 
to  something  for  Marjorie's  sake!" 
[    145    ] 


"But  Miles,"  he  persisted,  "what  about 
him!" 

"That  is  n't  kind  or  fair,"  she  replied,  at  the 
point  of  tears  again.  "  If  I  've  lost  my  ideals  he 's 
responsible !  He 's  thrown  away  all  of  his  own ! " 

"No,  not  quite!  If  he  had  he  would  n't  have 
been  angry  at  me  when  I  went  to  him  to  discuss 
these  matters!" 

"So  you've  talked  to  him!  Then,  of  course, 
you  came  to  me  prejudiced  in  his  favor !  I  don't 
call  that  being  fair.  And  if  he  asked  you  to  talk 
to  me  — " 

Her  eyes  flashed  indignantly. 

"It's  rather  funny  that  both  of  you  should 
be  so  afraid  of  that.  Nothing  is  further  from 
the  truth!" 

"I  know  you  mean  to  be  kind,  and  I  know  it 
was  n't  easy  for  you  to  come  to  me.  But  you 
can  see  that  matters  have  gone  too  far  —  after 
the  heartache  and  the  gossip  — " 

"The  heartache  is  deplorable,  and  the  gossip 
[  146  ] 


isn't  agreeable,"  he  assented  readily.  "We 
must  n't  let  the  chatter  of  the  neighbors  worry 
us.  Think  how  a  reconciliation  would  dull  the 
knives  of  the  expectant  cynics  and  hearten  the 
good  people  —  and  they  are  the  majority,  after 
all  — who  want  to  see  the  gospel  of  happiness 
and  love  rule  this  good  old  world.  As  for  things 
having  gone  too  far,  nothing 's  been  done,  no 
irrevocable  step  taken  — 

"You  don't  understand,  then, — "  and  there 
was  a  note  of  triumph  in  this, — "I've  brought 
a  suit;  it  will  be  determined  in  October." 

"October,"  replied  the  Poet,  with  his  pro- 
voking irrelevance,  "is  a  month  of  delight, 
*  season  of  mists  and  mellow  fruitfulness.'  The 
warmth  of  summer  still  hovering;  the  last 
flowers  challenging  the  frost  to  do  its  worst; 
plans  for  the  indoor  life  of  winter  —  the  fire, 
cozy  talks  that  are  n't  possible  anywhere  but 
at  the  hearthside;  the  friendly  lamp  and  the 
neglected  book  calling  us  back.  I  don't  think 
[  147  ] 


you  and  Miles  are  going  to  have  a  very 
happy  winter  of  it  under  different  roofs.  I'm 
sure  I  '11  miss  the  thought  of  you,  running  up- 
stairs on  tiptoe  when  you  thought  you  heard 
Marjorie.  Miles  was  always  reading  Kipling 
aloud  and  we  'd  forget  ourselves  and  laugh  till 
you'd  hush  us  and  run  away  in  a  panic.  You 
know,"  he  continued,  "your  cottage  wasn't 
only  a  place  for  you  to  live  in;  it  was  my  house 
of  dreams  —  a  house  of  realities  that  were 
dreams  come  true.  I  've  sat  by  the  table  many 
a  time  when  you  did  n't  know  I  was  there  —  an 
intruder  stealing  in,  a  cheerful  sort  of  ghost, 
sensible  of  an  unspoken  welcome.  Odd,  is  n't 
it,  about  the  spirit  of  place?  Not  a  great  many 
places  really  take  hold  of  most  of  us;  but  they 
have  a  way  of  haunting  us;  or  maybe  it's  the 
other  way  round  and  we  haunt  them,  and  with- 
out knowing  how  we  get  into  them.  We  explore 
strange  frontiers  into  undiscovered  countries; 
we  cross  from  our  own  existences  into  other 
[  148  ] 


people's  lives,  —  lose  identity,  feel,  see  as  other 
people  do,  —  and  then  lift  our  heads,  rub  our 
eyes,  and  become  our  old  selves  again  —  but 
not  quite.  We  are  likely  to  be  wiser  and  more 
just  and  tolerant.  And  it's  discouraging,"  he 
went  on,  "to  go  to  your  house  of  dreams  and 
find  it  plastered  with  '  for  rent '  and  '  for  sale ' 
signs  —  or  worse  yet,  to  let  yourself  in  with 
your  old  key  to  find  only  ghosts  there !  That 's 
what  I  've  been  doing.  Your  bungalow  is  empty 
—  doubly  empty  —  for  the  last  tenant  did  n't 
stay  long;  the  ghosts  were  probably  too  much 
for  him  !  But  I  'm  there — in  spirit,  you  might 
say.  If  the  owner  knew  how  much  I  loaf 
there,  in  a  disembodied  sort  of  fashion,  he'd 
begin  to  charge  me  rent !  But  it 's  mighty  lone- 
some —  nobody  around  to  dig  out  old  songs 
and  play  the  airs  for  me,  as  you  used  to,  while 
I  limped  along  with  Miles's  old  banjo." 

He  spoke  with  a  certain  air  of  injury,  as 
though  after  all  he  were  the  chief  sufferer  from 
[    149    ] 


the  passing  of  the  old  familiar  faces  from  his 
house  of  dreams.  He  complained  as  a  guest 
might  who  suddenly  finds  that  his  hosts  have 
taken  their  departure  without  warning,  leav- 
ing him  sitting  at  their  fireside  all  unconscious 
of  their  flight. 

Elizabeth  was  surprised  to  find  that  his  in- 
terposition in  this  fashion  impressed  her  more 
than  the  counsels  of  other  friends  who,  support- 
ing her  cause  loyally,  urged  her  to  maintain 
her  "  stand  "  and  recommended  sharp  reprisals. 
She  had  not  recovered  from  her  amazement  that 
this  shyest  and  most  unobtrusive  of  men  should 
have  come  to  her  in  any  guise;  and  when  he 
spoke  of  his  house  of  dreams  —  her  house  with 
its  old-fashioned  garden  that  contained  the 
flowers  he  scattered  of  tenest  through  his  poems 
—  she  was  half -persuaded  that  he  was  really  a 
sad,  wistful  visitor  of  this  house  of  dreams  — 
her  house  —  that  symbolized  for  him  content- 
ment and  peace. 

[    150    ] 


His  way  of  stating  the  case  touched  her 
deeply,  and  seeing  this  he  rose  and  walked 
to  the  veranda  rail  and  scanned  the  limpid 
water. 

"That  looks  like  the  boy  I  sent  to  do  my 
fishing  for  me,"  he  remarked.  "He's  bringing 
Marian  and  Marjorie  home.  A  pretty  capable 
boy,  that !  What  do  you  think  of  a  youngster 
who  pops  up  Out  of  nowhere  and  chucks 
bunches  of  verses  into  mail-boxes  on  crowded 
corners  where  any  one  with  any  sort  of  ear, 
passing  along,  would  hear  them  singing  inside ! 
Let's  go  down  and  meet  them." 

On  their  way  to  the  dock  the  Poet  continued 
to  talk  of  the  young  man  in  the  canoe  as  though 
he  were  a  great  personage.  His  extravagant 
praise  of  Frederick  Fulton  justified  any  one  in 
believing  that  either  Shelley  or  Keats  had 
stolen  away  from  Paradise  and  was  engaged 
just  now  in  paddling  a  canoe  upon  Lake  Wau- 
pegan.  The  Poet  had  risen  from  the  long  inter- 


view  with  apparent  satisfaction  and  was  now 
his  more  familiar  amusing  self. 

"How  on  earth  did  Marian  get  acquainted 
with  this  young  man?"  asked  Mrs.  Redfield  in 
perplexity,  as  Fulton  skillfully  maneuvered 
the  canoe  inshore. 

"Why  assume  that  I  know  anything  about 
it?  Marian  doubtless  knows  scores  of  people 
that  I  never  heard  of;  she's  not  an  old  friend 
like  you.  I  dare  say  he  saw  her  wandering 
alone  on  the  shore  and  at  once  landed  and 
handed  her  a  poem  as  though  it  were  the  adver- 
tisement of  a  ventriloquist  billed  for  one  night 
at  Waupegan  Town  Hall !  Very  likely,  being  a 
girl  of  discriminating  literary  taste,  she  liked 
his  verses  and  bade  him  welcome.  And  what 
could  be  more  natural  than  that  he  should 
offer  to  bring  her  home !  The  longer  I  live  the 
more  I  wonder  that  people  meet  who  were  al- 
ways destined  to  meet.  We  think  we  're  yield- 
ing to  chance  when  we're  really  doing  things 
[  152  ] 


we  Ve  been  rehearsing  in  our  subconsciousness 
for  a  thousand  years!" 

When  the  party  landed  he  parleyed  with 
Marjorie  to  make  it  necessary  for  Marian  to 
introduce  Fulton  to  Elizabeth.  He  avoided 
Marian's  eyes,  and  warily  eluded  the  combined 
efforts  of  the  sisters  to  detain  him.  The  obvious 
result  of  his  artfulness,  so  far  as  Marian  and 
Fulton  were  concerned,  was  eminently  satis- 
factory. The  most  delightful  comradeship 
seemed  to  have  been  established  between  the 
young  people.  The  Poet  was  highly  pleased 
with  his  morning's  work,  but  having  dared  so 
much  he  was  anxious  to  retire  while  the  spell  of 
mystification  was  still  upon  them.  Luncheon 
was  offered ;  Mrs.  Waring  would  soon  be  home 
and  would  be  inconsolable  if  she  found  they  had 
come  in  her  absence. 

"We  are  very  busy — fishing,"  said  the  Poet 
as  he  entrusted  himself  with  exaggerated  appre- 
hensions to  the  canoe.  "  When  you  have  a  boy 
[  153  ] 


fishing  for  you  you  have  to  watch  him.   He'll 
hide  half  the  fish  if  you're  not  careful." 

"You  absurd  man!"  cried  Marian,  with  an 
accession  of  boldness,  as  Fulton  swung  the 
canoe  round  with  sophisticated  strokes. 

"Ims  a  cwazy  man,"  piped  Marjorie;  "but 
ims  nice!" 

vn 

THE  Poet  was  amusing  himself  the  next 
afternoon  with  a  book  of  Scotch  ballads  when 
Fulton  found  him,  with  his  back  against  a  big 
beech,  apparently  established  for  all  time.  The 
young  man  did  n't  know  that  the  Poet  was 
rather  expecting  him  —  not  anxiously  or  ner- 
vously, in  the  way  of  people  unconsoled  by  a 
sound  philosophy;  but  the  Poet  had  neverthe- 
less found  in  the  ballads  some  hint  that  pos- 
sibly Frederick  Fulton  would  appear. 

Fulton  carried  a  tennis  racket  and  an  old 
geography  with  the  leaves  torn  out  which 
served  him  as  a  portfolio.  These  encumbrances 
[    154    ] 


seemed  in  nowise  related  to  each  other,  a  fact 
which  called  for  a  gibe. 

"I  telephoned  down  to  the  office  last  night 
and  arranged  to  take  my  vacation  now,"  Ful- 
ton explained.  "In  two  weeks  I  can  do  some 
new  poems  to  relieve  the  prose  of  my  story 
and  round  it  out.  The  lake's  my  scene,  you 
know ;  I  planned  it  all  last  September  —  and 
a  lot  of  things  will  occur  to  me  here  that  I'd 
never  get  hold  of  in  town.'* 

"There's  something  in  that,"  the  Poet 
agreed;  "and  by  putting  aside  the  pen  for  the 
racket  occasionally  you  can  observe  Marian  in 
her  golden  sandals  at  short  range.  And  then," 
he  deliberated,  "if  she  doesn't  prove  to  be 
quite  up  to  the  mark;  if  you  find  that  she 
is  n't  as  enchanting  as  you  imagined  when  you 
admired  her  at  a  distance,  you  can  substitute 
another  girl.  There  are  always  plenty  of  girls." 

Fulton  met  the  Poet's  eyes  squarely  and 
grinned. 

[    155    ] 


"So  far  my  only  trouble  is  my  own  general 
incompetence.  The  scenery  and  the  girl  are 
all  right.  By  the  way,  you  got  me  into  a  nice 
box  showing  her  my  verses!  I  suffered,  I  can 
tell  you,  when  I  followed  your  advice  and  pad- 
dled up  in  my  little  canoe  and  found  her  with 
those  things!" 

The  Poet  discounted  his  indignation  heavily, 
as  Fulton  clearly  meant  that  he  should. 

"Formal  introductions  bore  me,  and  in  your 
case  I  thought  we  'd  do  something  a  little  differ- 
ent. From  the  fact  that  you  're  going  off  now 
with  your  scribble-book  and  racket  to  find  her 
I  judge  that  my  way  of  bringing  you  to  each, 
other's  attention  has  been  highly  successful. 
Pray  don't  let  me  detain  you!"  he  ended  with 
faint  irony. 

"I  wanted  to  tell  you,"  said  Fulton,  "that 
I've  decided  not  to  accept  Redfield's  offer; 
I've  just  written  to  him." 

The  Poet  expressed  no  surprise.  He  merely 
[  156  ] 


nodded  and  began  searching  for  a  knot  in  the 
cord  attached  to  his  eye-glasses. 

"We  can  usually  trust  June  with  our  con- 
fidences and  rely  on  her  judgments,"  he  re- 
marked pensively.  "January  is  first-rate,  too; 
February  and  March  are  tricky  and  unreliable. 
April,  on  the  other  hand,  is  much  safer  than  she 
gets  credit  for  being.  But  it  was  lucky  that  we 
thought  of  June  as  an  arbiter  in  your  case.  If 
we  would  all  get  out  under  a  June  sky  like  this 
with  our  troubles  we  'd  be  a  good  deal  happier. 
It  was  a  bad  day  for  the  human  race  when  it 
moved  indoors." 

The  Poet,  absorbed  in  the  passage  of  a  launch 
across  the  lake,  had  not  applauded  Fulton's 
determination  not  to  ally  himself  with  Red- 
field,  as  the  young  man  had  expected.  Fulton 
felt  that  the  subject  required  something  more. 

"I  mean  to  stick  to  the  newspaper  and  use 
every  minute  I  have  outside  for  study  and  writ- 
ing," he  persisted  earnestly.  "I've  decided 
[  157  ] 


to  keep  trying  for  five  years,  whether  I  ever 
make  a  killing  or  not." 

''That's  good,"  said  the  Poet  heartily.  "I'm 
glad  you've  concluded  to  do  that.  Your  deter- 
mination carries  you  halfway  to  the  goal ;  and 
I  'm  glad  you  see  it  that  way.  I  did  n't  want  to 
influence  you  about  Redfield ;  but  I  wanted  you 
to  take  time  to  think." 

"Well,  I'm  sure  I  should  always  have  re- 
gretted it,  if  I  'd  gone  with  him.  And  now  that 
I've  met  Mrs.  Redfield,  I'm  fully  convinced 
that  I  'm  making  no  mistake.  It  does  n't  seem 
possible  — ' 

He  checked  himself,  and  waited  for  a  sign 
from  the  Poet  before  concluding.  The  Poet 
drew  out  and  replaced  in  the  ballads  the  slim 
ivory  paper-cutter  he  used  as  a  bookmark. 

"No,  it  doesn't  seem  possible,"  he  replied 

quietly.  "It  was  just  as  well  for  you  to'see  her 

before  making  up  your  mind  about  going  in 

with  Redfield."  (His  own  part  in  making  it  pos- 

[    158    ] 


THE    POET 

••  •       — 

sible  for  Fulton  to  meet  Mrs.  Redfield  at  this 
juncture  was  not,  he  satisfied  his  conscience,  a 
matter  for  confession !)  "Of  course  their  affairs 
will  straighten  out  —  not  because  you  or  I 
may  want  them  to,  but  because  they  really 
need  each  other;  or  if  they  don't  know  it  now 
they  will.  I'm  inclined  to  think  Marian  will 
help  a  little.  Even  you  and  I  may  be  inconspic- 
uous figures  in  the  drama  —  just  walking  on  and 
off,  saying  a  word  here  and  there !  None  of  us 
lives  all  to  himself.  All  of  us  who  write  must 
keep  that  in  mind; — our  responsibility.  When 
I  was  a  schoolboy  I  found  a  misspelled  word  in 
a  book  I  was  reading  and  I  kept  misspelling 
that  word  for  twenty  years.  We  must  be  careful 
what  we  put  into  print ;  we  never  can  tell  who 's 
going  to  be  influenced  by  what  we  write.  Don't 
let  anybody  fool  you  into  thinking  that  the 
virile  book  has  to  be  a  nasty  one.  There 's  too 
much  of  that  sort  of  thing.  They  talk  about 
warning  the  innocent;  but  there's  not  much 
[  159  ] 


THE    POET 


sense  in  handing  a  child  the  hot  end  of  a  poker 
just  to  make  it  dread  the  fire.  There  are  writers 
who  seem  to  find  a  great  joy  in  making  man- 
kind out  as  bad  as  possible,  and  that  does  n't 
help  particularly,  does  it?  It  does  n't  help  you 
or  me  any  to  find  that  some  man  we  have 
known  and  admired  has  landed  with  a  bump 
at  the  bottom  of  the  toboggan.  But,"  he 
ended,  "when  we  hear  the  bump  it's  our  job 
to  get  the  arnica  bottle  and  see  what  we  can 
do  for  him.  By  the  way,  I'm  leaving  this 
afternoon." 

"Not  going — not  to-day!"  cried  Fulton 
with  unfeigned  surprise  and  disappointment. 

"As  I  never  had  the  slightest  intention  of 
coming,  it's  time  I  was  moving  along.  And 
besides,  I've  accomplished  all  the  objects  of 
my  visit.  If  I  remained  any  longer  I  might 
make  a  muddle  of  them.  I'm  a  believer  in 
the  inevitable  hour  and  the  inevitable  word. 
'Skip*  was  the  first  word  that  popped  into  my 
[  160  ] 


head  when  I  woke  up  this  morning.  At  first  I 
thought  Providence  was  kindly  indicating  the 
passing  of  a  prancing  buccaneer  who  began 
pounding  carpets  under  my  window  at  5  A.M.  ; 
but  that  was  too  good  to  be  true.  I  decided  that 
it  was  in  the  stars  that  I  should  be  the  skip- 
per. Unless  the  innkeeper  is  an  exalted  liar  my 
train  leaves  at  four,  and  I  shall  be  occupied 
with  balladry  until  the  hour  arrives.  We  must 
cultivate  repose  and  guard  against  fretfulness. 
There's  no  use  in  trying  to  hasten  the  inevit- 
able hour  by  moving  the  dial  closer  to  the  sun. 
If  you're  not  too  busy  you  might  bring  Mar- 
jorie  and  Marian  over  to  see  me  off.  It  would 
be  a  pleasant  attention;  and  besides,  I  should 
be  much  less  likely  to  miss  the  train." 

VIII 

MRS.  REDFIELD,  Marian,  and  Marjorie  were 
back  in  town  by  the  first  of  July.   The  sisters 
had  taken  a  small  house  on  a  convenient  side 
[    161    ] 


street  and  were  facing  their  to-morrows  confi- 
dently. Mrs.  Redfield  was  to  open  a  kinder- 
garten in  October  and  Marian  was  to  teach 
Latin  in  a  private  school.  Fulton  still  clung 
to  the  manuscript  of  his  romance  for  the  re- 
vision it  constantly  invited.  [Since  returning  to 
town  he  had  seen  the  Poet  frequently,  and  had 
kept  that  gentleman  informed  of  the  move- 
ments and  plans  of  Mrs.  Redfield  and  Marian. 

The  Poet  wandered  into,  the  "Chronicle" 
office  one  humid  afternoon  and  found  the 
reporter  writing  an  interview  with  a  visiting 
statesman.  On  days  when  every  one  else  com- 
plained bitterly  of  the  heat,  the  Poet  was 
apparently  the  coolest  person  in  town. 

"I  hope  you  have  enough  raisins  in  your 
pudding  to  spare  a  few,"  he  remarked.  And 
then,  as  Fulton  groped  for  his  meaning,  he  drew 
an  envelope  from  his  pocket.  "I  took  the  lib- 
erty of  purloining  a  few  of  those  things  you 
gave  me  a  month  ago  before  I  passed  them  on  to 
[  162  ] 


Marian,  and  here's  the  'Manhattan  Magazine' 
kindly  inclosing  a  check  for  fifty  dollars  for 
four  of  them.  I  suggested  to  the  editor  that 
they  ought  to  be  kept  together  and  printed  on 
one  page.  If  you  don't  like  the  arrangement, 
you  can  send  back  the  check.  I'd  suggest, 
though,  that  you  exchange  it  for  gold  and  carry 
the  coins  in  your  pocket  for  a  day  or  two.  The 
thrill  of  the  first  real  money  you  get  for  poetry 
comes  only  once.  Of  course,  if  you  're  not  satis- 
fied and  want  to  send  it  back  — 

He  feigned  to  ignore  the  surprise  and  delight 
with  which  the  young  man  stared  at  the  slip 
of  paper  in  his  hand  while  he  tried  to  grasp  this 
astonishing  news. 

"  Send  it  back ! "  he  blurted,  breaking  in  upon 
the  Poet's  further  comments  on  the  joy  of  a 
first  acceptance.  "Send  it  back!  Why,  they've 
sent  me  back  dozens  of  better  pieces !  And  if  it 
had  n't  been  for  you  —  Why,"  he  cried,  with 
mounting  elation,  "this  is  the  grandest  thing 
[  163  ] 


that  ever  happened  to  me!   If  I  was  n't  afraid 
of  getting  arrested  I'd  yell!" 

"Of  course,"  continued  the  Poet  calmly,  "I 
had  to  tell  the  magazine  people  that  you  made 
your  sketches  from  life  —  and  that  they  might 
get  into  a  libel  suit  by  printing  them.  I  suppose 
you  're  hardly  in  a  position  to  ask  Miss  Agnew's 
leave  to  print !  You  have  n't  been  seeing  much 
of  her,  of  course!" 

An  imaginary  speck  of  mud  on  his  umbrella 
engaged  the  Poet's  attention  at  the  moment  so 
that  he  missed  the  color  that  deepened  in  Ful- 
ton's face. 

"Oh,  I've  seen  a  good  deal  of  Miss  Agnew," 
he  confessed,  "both  at  the  lake  and  since  I've 
come  home.  We  do  some  tennis  together  every 
afternoon  I  can  get  off.  I  suppose  there  might 
be  some  question  as  to  using  the  poems  with- 
out asking  her  about  it.  Very  likely  no  one 
would  ever  guess  that  she  inspired  them — and 
yet  I  have  a  guilty  feeling  — " 
[  164  ] 


You  know,  of  course;  and  she,  being,  we 
will  say,  a  person  of  average  intelligence, 
knows,  too,  perfectly  well.  There  you  have  it 
—  a  very  delicate  question !  And  the  fact  that 
she  does  n't  care  for  such  foolishness  as  poetry 
and  romance  makes  a  difference.  You  've  got 
to  consider  that." 

His  insinuations  had  been  of  the  mildest,  but 
his  keen  scrutiny  marked  the  flash  of  resent- 
ment in  Fulton's  eyes. 

"Well,  she  was  very  nice  about  my  putting 
her  into  the  story.  It  did  rather  stagger  her  at 
first  —  to  know  that  I  had  been  worshiping 
from  afar,  and  grinding  rhymes  about  her  for 
a  year  without  ever  knowing  her." 

"The  enchantment  was  n't  all  a  matter  of 
distance,  I  hope,"  the  Poet  persisted.  "I  wasn't 
quite  sure  about  her.  She  struck  me  as  being 
a  little  bitter ;  seemed  to  think  life  a  string  of 
wrong  numbers  and  the  girl  at  the  exchange 
stupid  and  cross.  I  should  be  sorry  if  you  got 
[  165  ] 


any  such  notions  from  her;  it  couldn't  fail 
to  make  your  ideal  totter  on  its  pedestal.  It 
would  be  rough  to  find  that  your  Pomona,  in 
shaking  the  boughs  in  the  orchard,  was  looking 
for  an  apple  with  a  worm-mark  in  its  damask 
cheek.  It  would  argue  for  an  unhappy  nature. 
We  must  insist  that  our  goddesses  have  a 
cheerful  outlook;  no  grumbling  when  it  rains 
on  the  picnic! " 

"Well,"  Fulton  admitted,  "she  did  seem  a 
little  disdainful  and  rather  generally  skeptical 
about  things  at  first;  but  I  met  that  by  rather 
overemphasizing  the  general  good  that 's  lying 
around  everywhere,  most  of  which  I  got  from 
your  books.  Her  father  had  lost  his  money, 
and  her  sister's  troubles  could  n't  fail  to  spoil 
some  of  her  illusions;  but  she's  going  into  her 
school  -  teaching  with  the  right  spirit.  She 's 
been  reading  the  manuscript  of  my  story  and 
has  made  some  bully  suggestions.  I  've  rewrit- 
ten one  of  the  chapters  and  improved  it  vastly 
[  166  ] 


because  she  pointed  out  a  place  where  I'd 
changed  the  key  a  little  —  I  must  have  been 
tired  when  I  wrote  it.  I  'd  rather  got  off  the 
i  omantic  note  I  started  with  and  there  were 
a  dozen  dead,  pallid  pages  right  in  the  middle 
of  the  thing." 

"  She  was  afraid  the  romantic  element  flagged 
there?"  asked  the  Poet  carelessly. 

"Well,  I  suppose  that's  about  what  it  came 
to.  My  heroine  and  the  hero  had  a  tiff;  and  I 
was  giving  the  girl  the  best  of  it  and  making 
him  out  unreasonable ;  and  she  said  she  thought 
that  was  n't  fair ;  that  the  trouble  was  all  the 
girl's  fault.  She  thought  the  girl  should  n't 
have  been  so  peevish  over  a  small  matter  when 
the  young  orchardist  had  shown  himself  chiv- 
alrous and  generous.  It  seemed  to  be  Miss 
Agnew's  idea  that  when  you  go  in  for  romance 
you  ought  to  carry  through  with  it." 

The  Poet's  attention  seemed  to  wander,  and 
he  suppressed  a  smile  with  difficulty.  He  then 
[  167  ] 


began  searching  his  pockets  for  something, 
and  not  finding  it,  remarked:  — 

"People  who  never  change  their  minds  are 
n't  interesting ;  they  really  are  not." 

"Well,  I'm  glad  enough  to  change  mine," 
replied  Fulton,  not  knowing  what  was  in  the 
Poet's  mind;  "and  I  hope  I'll  never  get  to  a 
place  where  I  can't  take  criticism  in  the  right 
spirit." 

"Oh,  I  was  n't  thinking  of  you,"  remarked 
the  Poet. 

He  rose  and  moved  quickly  toward  the  door, 
as  though  to  escape  from  Fulton's  renewed 
thanks  for  his  kind  offices  in  disposing  of  the 
verses. 

"Don't  work  yourself  to  death,"  he  warned 
Fulton  in  the  hall.  "I'm  glad  Marian's  influ- 
ence is  so  beneficent.  When  your  proof  comes, 
hold  it  a  day  or  two;  there's  always  the  chance 
of  bettering  a  thing." 

I    168    ] 


IX 

As  September  waned,  Fulton  heard  disquiet- 
ing news  touching  Redfield.  It  was  whispered 
in  business  circles  that  the  broker  had,  the  pre- 
vious year,  sold  stock  in  a  local  industrial  ven- 
ture that  had  already  come  to  grief.  Redfield's 
friends  were  saying  that  he  had  been  misled  by 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  men  who  had  promoted 
the  company,  but  this  was  not  accepted  at  face 
value  by  some  of  his  business  rivals.  Fortu- 
nately the  amount  was  not  large  —  a  mitigat- 
ing circumstance  for  which  he  was  not  respon- 
sible ;  he  would  have  sold  more,  it  was  said, 
if  investors  had  proved  less  wary.  The  story 
was  well  calculated  to  injure  if  it  did  n't  at 
once  destroy  Redfield's  chances  of  success 
as  a  dealer  in  securities. 

Fulton  was  a  good  deal  disturbed  by  these 

reports,  which  it  became  his  duty  to  sift  for  the 

"Chronicle."    Fulton  liked  Redfield;  Redfield 

was  a  likable  person,  a  good  fellow.  The  effect 

[    169    ] 


upon  his  future  of  this  misfortune,  attributable 
to  his  new-born  zeal  for  money-making,  was  not 
to  be  passed  lightly.  There  was  nothing  for  the 
papers  to  print,  as  the  complaining  purchas- 
ers had  been  made  whole  and  were  anxious  to 
avoid  publicity.  Fulton  had  watched  matters 
carefully  with  a  view  to  protecting  Redfield 
if  it  became  necessary,  and  he  was  confident 
that  the  sanguine  promoters  were  the  real  cul- 
prits, though  it  was  pretty  clear  that  any  scru- 
ples the  broker  might  have  had  had  gone  down 
before  the  promise  of  a  generous  commission. 
When  quite  satisfied  that  Redfield  was  safe 
so  far  as  prosecution  was  concerned,  Fulton 
spoke  of  Redfield's  difficulties  to  the  Poet  on  an 
evening  when  he  called  ostensibly  to  report  the 
completion  of  his  romance.  The  Poet  listened 
attentively,  but  the  reporter  accepted  his  mild 
expressions  of  regret  as  indicating  indifference 
to  Redfield's  fate.  The  young  man's  remark 
that  if  it  had  n't  been  for  the  Poet  he  would 


have  shared  Redfield's  collapse  elicited  no  com- 
ment. The  Poet,  imaginably  preoccupied  with 
less  disagreeable  speculations,  turned  at  once 
to  Fulton's  manuscript.  After  the  final  draft 
had  been  discussed  and  publishers  had  been 
considered,  the  young  man  left  in  the  cheerful 
mood  he  always  carried  away  from  his  talks 
with  the  Poet. 

But  the  Poet  spent  a  restless  evening.  He 
listlessly  turned  over  many  bocks  without  find- 
ing any  to  arrest  his  interest.  He  was  troubled, 
deeply  troubled,  by  what  Fulton  had  told  him 
of  Redfield.  And  he  was  wondering  whether 
there  might  not  be  some  way  of  turning  his  old 
friend's  humiliation  to  good  account.  A  man 
of  Redfield's  character  and  training  would  feel 
disgrace  keenly ;  and  coming  at  a  time  when  he 
believed  himself  well  launched  toward  success, 
the  shock  to  his  pride  would  be  all  the  greater. 

Nothing  in  the  Poet's  creed  was  more 
brightly  rubricated  than  his  oft-repeated  dec- 


larations  that  the  unfortunate,  the  erring, 
the  humbled,  are  entitled  to  mercy  and  kind- 
ness. The  Redfields'  plight  had  roused  him 
to  a  defense  of  his  theory  of  life;  but  Fulton's 
story  had  added  a  new  integer  that  greatly  in- 
creased the  difficulty  of  solving  this  problem. 
Seemingly  Fate  was  using  these  old  friends  to 
provide  illustrations  for  many  of  the  dicta  that 
were  the  foundation  of  his  teachings.  Inspira- 
tion did  not  visit  the  quiet  street  that  night. 
The  Poet  pondered  old  poems  rather  than 
new  ones.  "Life  is  a  game  the  soul  can  play," 
he  found  in  Sill;  but  the  chessmen,  he  reflected, 
are  sometimes  bafflingly  obstinate  and  unrea- 
sonable. 

"To-morrow  is  All -Children's  Day,"  re- 
marked the  Poet  a  few  days  later  when,  seem- 
ingly by  chance,  he  met  Fulton  in  the  street; 
and  when  the  young  man  asked  for  light  the 
Poet  went  on  to  explain.  "  When  Marjorie  was 
born  her  father  and  I  set  apart  her  birthday  to 


be  All-Children's  Day  —  a  crystallization  of 
all  children's  birthdays,  from  the  beginning  of 
time,  and  we  meant  to  celebrate  it  to  the  end 
of  our  days.  It  just  occurs  to  me  that  you  and 
I  might  make  it  an  excuse  for  calling  on  Mrs. 
Redfield  and  Marian  and  Marjorie  to-morrow 
afternoon,  the  same  being  Sunday.  Very  likely 
you  have  another  engagement  — "he  ended, 
with  provoking  implications  that  caused  Ful- 
ton, who  was  already  pledged  to  visit  Marjorie 
and  inferentially  Marian  and  Mrs.  Redfield 
on  this  very  Sunday  afternoon,  to  stammer  in 
the  most  incriminating  fashion. 

"Then  if  you  have  n't  anything  better  to 
do  we  can  call  together,"  said  the  Poet. 

It  would  have  been  clear  to  less  observant 
eyes  than  the  Poet's  that  the  reporter  was  on 
excellent  terms  with  the  household,  and  even 
if  the  elders  had  tried  to  mask  the  cordiality  of 
their  welcome,  Mar  jorie's  delight  in  Fulton  was 
too  manifest  for  concealment.  She  transpar- 
[  173  ] 


ently  disclosed  the  existence  of  much  unfinished 
business  between  herself  and  the  young  man 
that  pointed  irrefutably  to  many  previous  and 
recent  interviews. 

"Inside  is  no  good  for  houses,"  Marjorie  was 
saying,  as  the  Poet  accommodated  himself 
to  the  friendly  atmosphere;  "nobody  builds 
houses  inside  of  houses." 

This  suggestion  of  the  open  was  promptly 
supported  by  Fulton;  and  in  the  most  natural 
manner  imaginable  Marian  was  pressed  into 
service  to  assist  in  transferring  building-mate- 
rials to  the  few  square  yards  of  lawn  at  the  side 
of  the  house.  September  was  putting  forth  all 
her  pomp  and  the  air  was  of  summer  warmth. 
Marjorie's  merry  treble  floated  in  with  the 
laughter  of  Marian  and  Fulton.  They  were 
engaged  with  utmost  seriousness  in  endeavor- 
ing to  reproduce  with  blocks  the  elaborate  cha- 
teau of  sand,  sticks,  and  stones  that  had  been 
their  rally  ing-point  on  the  shores  of  Waupegan. 
[  174  ] 


[THE    POET 

The  Poet,  left  alone  with  Mrs.  Redfield, 
noted  the  presence  in  the  tiny  parlor  of  some 
of  the  lares  and  penates  that  had  furnished 
forth  the  suburban  bungalow  and  that  had 
survived  the  transfer  to  the  flat  and  the  subse- 
quent disaster.  They  seemed  curiously  wistful 
in  these  new  surroundings.  As  though  aware 
that  this  was  in  his  mind,  Mrs.  Redfield  began 
speaking  of  matters  as  far  removed  from  her 
own  affairs  as  possible.  The  Poet  understood, 
and,  when  the  topics  she  suggested  gave  oppor- 
tunity, played  upon  them  whimsically.  The 
trio  in  the  yard  were  evidently  having  the  best 
of  times;  and  their  happiness  stirred  various 
undercurrents  of  thought  in  the  Poet's  mind. 
He  was  not  quite  sure  of  his  ground.  It  was 
one  thing  to  urge  charity,  mercy,  and  tolerance 
in  cloistral  security;  to  put  one's  self  forward 
as  the  protagonist  of  any  of  these  virtues  was 
quite  another. 

The  Poet  rose,  picked  up  a  magazine  from 
[  175  ] 


the  center  table,  scanned  the  table  of  contents, 
and  then  said,  very  quietly,  — 

"Miles  is  in  trouble." 

He  watched  her  keenly  for  the  effect  of  this, 
and  then  proceeded  quickly :  — 

"It's  fortunate  that  the  jar  came  so  soon; 
a  few  years  later  and  it  might  n't  have  been 
possible  for  him  to  recover;  but  I  think  there's 
hope  for  him." 

"What  Miles  does  or  what  he  becomes  is 
of  no  interest  to  me,"  she  answered  sharply. 
"He  did  n't  feel  that  there  was  any  disgrace  to 
him  in  casting  Marjorie  and  me  aside;  his 
pride's  not  likely  to  suffer  from  anything  else 
that  may  happen  to  him." 

"He's  down  and  out;  there's  no  possibility 
of  his  going  on  with  the  brokerage  business; 
he's  got  to  make  a  new  start.  It's  to  be  said 
for  him  that  he  has  made  good  the  losses  of 
the  people  who  charged  him  with  unfair  deal- 
ing. I  'm  disposed  to  think  he  was  carried  away 
[  176  ] 


by  his  enthusiasm;  he  was  trying  to  get  on 
too  fast." 

In  spite  of  her  flash  of  anger  at  the  mention 
of  her  husband's  name,  it  was  clear  that  her 
curiosity  had  been  aroused.  Nor  was  the  Poet 
dismayed  by  a  light  in  her  dark  eyes  which  he 
interpreted  as  expressing  a  sense  of  triumph 
and  vindication. 

"I  suppose  he's  satisfied  now,"  she  said. 

"I  fancy  his  state  of  mind  isn't  enviable," 
the  Poet  replied  evenly.  "Life,  when  you  come 
to  think  of  it,  is  a  good  deal  like  writing  a  sonnet. 
You  start  off  bravely  with  your  rhyme  words 
scrawled  at  the  top  of'  the  page.  Four  lines 
may  come  easily  enough;  but  the  words  you 
have  counted  on  to  carry  you  through  lead 
into  all  manner  of  complications.  You  are 
betrayed  into  saying  the  reverse  of  the  thing 
you  started  out  to  say.  You  begin  with  spring 
and  after  you've  got  the  birds  to  singing,  the 
powers  of  mischief  turn  the  seasons  upside 
[  177  1 


down,  and  before  you  know  it  the  autumn 
leaves  are  falling;  it's  extremely  discouraging! 
If  we  could  only  stick  to  the  text  —  " 

His  gesture  transferred  the  illustration  from 
the  field  of  literary  composition  to  the  ampler 
domain  of  life. 

She  smiled  at  his  feigned  helplessness  to  pur- 
sue his  argument  further. 

"But  when  the  rhyme  words  won't  carry 
sense,  and  you  have  to  throw  the  whole  thing 
overboard  —  •"  she  ventured. 

"No,  oh,  no!  That's  the  joy  of  rhyming  — 
its  endless  fascination!  The  discreet  and  eco- 
nomical poet  never  throws  away  even  a  single 
line ;  there 's  always  a  chance  that  it  may  be 
of  use."  He  was  feeling  his  way  back  to  his 
illustration  of  life  from  the  embarrassments 
of  sonneteering,  and  smiled  as  his  whimsical 
fancy  caught  at  a  clue.  "If  you  don't  forget 
the  text,  —  if  you  're  quite  sure  you  have  an 
idea,  —  or  an  ideal!  —  then  it's  profitable  to 
[  178  ] 


keep  fussing  away  at  it.  If  a  bad  line  offend 
you,  pluck  it  out;  or  maybe  a  line  gets  into  the 
wrong  place  and  has  to  be  moved  around  until 
it  fits.  It 's  all  a  good  deal  like  the  work  Mar- 
jorie  's  doing  outside  —  fitting  blocks  together 
that  have  to  go  in  a  certain  way  or  the  whole 
structure  will  tumble.  It 's  the  height  of  cowar- 
dice to  give  up  and  persuade  yourself  that  you've 
exhausted  the  subject  in  a  quatrain.  The  good 
craftsman  will  follow  the  pattern — perfect  his 
work,  make  it  express  the  best  in  himself!" 

And  this  referred  to  the  estrangement  of 
Miles  Redfield  and  his  wife  or  not;  just  as 
one  might  please  to  take  it. 

"Miles  has  gone  away,  I  suppose,"  she  re- 
marked listlessly. 

This  made  the  situation  quite  concrete  again, 
and  any  expression  of  interest,  no  matter  how 
indifferent,  would  have  caused  the  Poet's  heart 
to  bound;  but  his  face  did  not  betray  him. 

"Oh,  he  will  be  back  shortly,  I  understand. 
[  179  ] 


I  rather  think  he  will  show  himself  a  man  and 
pull  his  sonnet  together  again!  There's  a  fine 
courage  in  Miles;  unless  I've  mistaken  him,  he 
won't  sit  down  and  cry,  even  if  he  has  made  a 
pretty  bad  blunder.  A  man  hardly  ever  loses 
all  his  friends;  there 's  always  somebody  around 
who  will  hand  a  tract  in  at  the  jail  door! " 

"You  don't  mean,"  she  exclaimed,  "that 
Miles  has  come  to  that ! " 

"  Bless  me,  no ! "  the  Poet  cried,  with  another 
heart  throb.  "The  worst  is  over  now;  I'm 
quite  satisfied  of  that!"  he  answered  with  an 
ease  that  conveyed  nothing  of  the  pains  he 
had  taken,  by  ways  devious  and  concealed,  to 
assure  himself  that  Miles  had  made  complete 
restitution. 

"A  man  of  cheaper  metal  might  have  taken 
chances  with  the  law;  I'm  confident  that  Miles 
was  less  the  culprit  than  the  victim.  He  sold 
something  that  was  n't  good,  on  the  strength  of 
statements  he  was  n't  responsible  for.  I  believe 
[  180  1 


that  to  be  honestly  true,  and  I  got  it  through 
men  who  have  no  interest  in  him,  who  might 
be  expected  to  chortle  over  his  misfortune." 

"In  business  matters,"  she  replied,  with  an 
emphasis  that  was  eloquent  of  reservations  as 
to  other  fields,  "Miles  was  always  perfectly 
honorable.  I  don't  believe  anybody  would 
question  that." 

It  had  n't  entered  into  the  Poet's  most 
sanguine  speculations  that  she  would  defend 
Miles,  or  speak  even  remotely  in  praise  of 
him.  Wisdom  dictated  an  immediate  change 
of  topic.  He  walked  to  the  open  window  and 
established  communication  with  the  builders 
outside,  who  had  reproduced  the  Waupegan 
chateau  with  added  splendors  and  were  anxious 
to  have  it  admired. 

X 

INDIRECTION  as  a  method  and  means  to  ends 
has  its  disadvantages ;  but  it  is  not  to  be  scorned 
[    181    ] 


utterly.  A  week  following  Marjorie's  birthday 
children  idling  on  their  way  home  from  school 
in  Marston  grew  silent  and  conferred  in  whis- 
pers as  a  gentleman  whose  name  and  fame  had 
been  interwoven  in  their  alphabet  lounged  by. 
He  turned  with  a  smile  to  lift  his  hat  to  an 
urchin  bolder  than  the  rest  who  shouted  his 
name  from  a  discreet  distance. 

Within  a  few  days  the  signs  had  vanished 
from  the  Redfield  cottage  and  the  weeds  had 
been  cut.  As  the  Poet  opened  the  gate,  Fulton 
came  out  of  the  front  door :  neither  seemed  sur- 
prised to  see  the  other.  The  'odor  of  fresh  paint 
elicited  a  sniff  of  satisfaction  from  the  Poet,  a 
satisfaction  that  deepened  a  moment  later  as 
he  entered  the  studio  and  noted  its  neatness 
and  order. 

"Mrs.  Waring  sent  a  maid  out  to  do  all  this, 
and  lent  me  the  things  we  needed  for  the  tea- 
table,"  Fulton  explained.  "I  had  hard  work 
to  persuade  her  this  was  n't  one  of  your  jokes. 
[  182  ] 


I  had  harder  work  to  get  Mrs.  Redfield  to  come 
and  bring  Marjorie;  but  Marian  supported  the 
scheme,  and  brought  Mrs.  Redfield  round.  I 
fell  back  heavily  on  your  argument  that  Mar- 
jorie ought  to  have  a  final  picnic  before  the 
turn  o'  the  year  —  a  last  chance  to  build  a  sho- 
tum  ready  for  knights  to  come  widing." 

"Marian  is  a  persuasive  person,  I  imagine," 
the  Poet  remarked.  "By  the  way,  I  shall  be  a 
little  late  arriving.  Myers,  the  artist,  lives  a 
little  farther  down  Audubon  Road  and  I  want 
to  have  a  look  at  his  summer's  work.  Nice 
fellow;  good  workman.  Redfield  promised  to 
meet  me  there;  I  want  to  be  sure  he  does  n't 
run  away.  We  don't  want  the  party  spoiled 
after  all  the  work  we  've  done  on  it." 

"I  wonder,"  Mrs.  Redfield  remarked,  over 
the  tea-table,  "who  has  bought  the  place?  " 

"A  trust  company,  I  think,"  replied  Fulton, 
glancing  through  the  broad  north  window  of 
[  183  ] 


the  studio  with  careful  dissimulation.  "As  I 
passed  the  other  day  I  saw  that  the  grounds 
had  been  put  in  order,  and  decided  that  this 
would  be  just  the  place  for  a  picnic." 

"This  little  house  would  be  nice  for  my 
playhouse;  and  we  could  use  that  big  window 
to  watch  urns  knights  come  widing." 

"That  chimney  used  to  roar  the  way  you 
read  about,"  remarked  Marian.  "I  think 
every  house  ought  to  have  a  detached  place 
like  this,  for  tea  and  sewing  and  children  to 
play  in." 

Mrs.  Redfield,  ill  at  ease,  was  attending  list- 
lessly to  the  talk.  Fulton's  explanation  had 
not  wholly  explained.  She  had  agreed  to  the 
excursion  only  after  Marjorie  had  clamorously 
insisted  upon  the  outing  her  devoted  cavalier 
had  proposed.  Marjorie's  comments  upon  the 
broad  yard,  her  childish  delight  in  the  studio 
playhouse,  touched  chords  of  memory  that 
jangled  harshly. 

[    184    ] 


Fulton  was  in  high  spirits.  His  romance 
had  been  accepted  and  a  representative  of  the 
publishing  house  was  coming  to  confer  with 
him  about  illustrations. 

"They  say  it  won't  break  any  best-selling 
records,  but  it  will  give  me  a  start.  The  scoun- 
drels had  the  cheek  to  suggest  that  I  cut  out 
some  of  my  jingles,  but  I  scorned  such  impious- 
ness  in  an  expensive  telegram." 

"I  should  hope  so!"  cried  Marian  approv- 
ingly. "The  story's  only  an  excuse  for  the 
poems.  Even  the  noblest  prose  would  n't  ex- 
press the  lake,  the  orchard,  and  the  fields;  if 
you  cut  out  your  verses,  there  would  n't  be 
much  left  but  a  young  gentleman  spraying 
apple  trees  and  looking  off  occasionally  at  the 
girls  paddling  across  the  lake." 

"You  do  my  orchardist  hero  a  cruel  injus- 
tice," protested  Fulton,  "  for  he  saw  only  one 
girl  —  and  a  very  nice  girl  she  was  —  or  is!" 

"  What  on  earth  are  you  two  talking  about?  " 
[  185  ] 


asked  Mrs.  Redfield,  looking  from  one  to  the 
other,  while  thwarting  Marjorie  in  a  forbidden 
attack  upon  the  cookies.  "It  seems  to  me  that 
you  've  been  talking  for  years  about  this  story, 
and  I  don't  know  yet  what  it's  all  about." 

"Hims  witing  books  like  the  funny  poetry 
man,  and  hims  told  me  if  I  'm  good  and  nice  to 
you  and  Aunt  Marian  he'll  wite  a  book  all 
about  me,  and  my  dollies,  and  how  we  builded 
shotums  by  the  lake  and  in  our  yard;  and 
Marian  can't  be  in  any  more  books,  but  just 
be  sitting  on  a  wock  by  the  lake,  having  urns 
picture  painted." 

"Thank  you,  Marjorie;  I  knew  he  was  a 
deceiver  and  that  proves  it,"  laughed  Marian, 
avoiding  her  sister's  eyes.  "  Let 's  all  go  out  and 
see  the  sun  go  down." 

Marjorie  toddled  off  along  the  walk  that 
bisected  what  had  once  been  a  kitchen-garden. 

The  sun  was  resting  his  fiery  burden  on  the 
dark  edge  of  a  wood  on  the  western  horizon. 
[  186  ] 


The  front  door  of  the  bungalow  was  ajar  and 
Mrs.  Redfield  crossed  the  piazza  and  peered  in. 
The  place  was  clean  and  freshly  papered;  a 
fire  burned  in  the  fireplace  —  no  mere  careless 
blaze  of  litter  left  by  workmen,  but  flaming 
logs  that  crackled  cheerily.  Her  memory  dis- 
tributed her  own  belongings;  here  had  been 
the  table  and  there  the  couch  and  chair;  and 
she  saw  restored  to  the  bare  walls  the  pictures 
that  now  cluttered  the  attic  of  the  home  she 
had  established  with  Marian,  that  had  once 
hung  here  — each  with  its  special  meaning  for 
the  occupants. 

She  stood,  a  girlish  figure,  with  her  hands 
thrust  into  the  pockets  of  her  sweater,  staring 
with  unseeing  eyes  at  the  mocking  flames. 

The  Poet  had  spoken  of  the  visits  he  paid 
in  fancy  to  his  house  of  dreams,  and  she  half- 
wondered  whether  she  were  not  herself  a  dis- 
embodied spirit  imprisoned  in  a  house  of  shad- 
ows. A  light,  furtive  step  on  the  piazza 
[  187  ] 


startled  her,  and  lifting  her  eyes  with  the  Poet 
still  in  her  mind  she  saw  him  crossing  the  room 
quickly,  like  a  guest  approaching  his  hostess. 

"It's  pleasant  to  find  the  mistress  back  in 
the  house  of  dreams,"  he  said.  "And  she  brings, 
oh,  so  many  things  with  her!" 

He  glanced  about  the  empty  room  as  though 
envisaging  remembered  comforts. 

"I  might  have  known,"  she  murmured, 
"that  this  was  your  plan." 

"No,"  he  replied,  with  a  smile  that  brought 
to  his  face  a  rare  kindliness  and  sweetness,  "it 
was  n't  mine;  I'm  merely  an  inefficient  agent. 
It's  all  born  of  things  hoped  for  — " 

He  waved  his  hand  to  the  bare  walls,  brought 
it  round  and  placed  something  in  her  palm. 

"There's  the  key  to  my  house  of  dreams. 
As  you  see,  it  needs  people  —  its  own  people  — 
Marjorie  and  you,  for  example,  to  make  it  home 
again.  I  shall  be  much  happier  to  know  you  're 
back " 

[    188    ] 


He  was  gone  and  she  gazed  after  him  with  a 
deepened  sense  of  unreality.  A  moment  later 
she  heard  Marjorie  calling  to  him  in  the  garden. 

She  stood  staring  at  the  flat  bit  of  metal  he 
had  left  in  her  hand,  the  key  of  his  house  of 
dreams;  then  she  laid  her  arms  upon  the  long 
shelf  of  the  mantel  and  wept.  The  sound  of  her 
sobbing  filled  the  room.  Never  before  —  not 
when  the  anger  and  shame  of  her  troubles  were 
fresh  upon  her  —  had  she  been  so  shaken. 

She  was  still  there,  with  her  head  bowed 
upon  her  arms,  when  a  voice  spoke  her  name, 
"Elizabeth,"  and  "Elizabeth,"  again,  very 
softly. 

The  sun  flamed  beyond  the  woodland.  The 
Poet  joined  with  Marian  and  Fulton  in  praising 
the  banners  of  purple  and  gold  that  were  flung 
across  the  west,  while  Marjorie  tugged  at  his 
umbrella. 

"It's   all  good  —  everything  is   good!    A 

[    189    ] 


pretty  good,  cheerful  kind  of  world  when  you 
consider  it.  I  think,"  he  added  with  his  eyes  on 
Marian,  "that  maybe  Miles  can  find  time  to  do 
the  pictures  for  Fred's  book.  His  old  place  at 
the  bank  won't  be  ready  until  the  first  of  the 
year,  and  that  will  give  him  a  chance  to  work 
up  something  pretty  fine.  I  '11  see  that  publisher 
about  it  when  he  comes;  and  — "  He  withdrew 
several  steps,  and  looked  absently  at  the  glories 
of  the  dying  day  before  concluding,  "it's  just 
as  well  to  keep  all  the  good  things  in  the 
family." 

When  they  hurried  to  the  gate,  they  saw 
him  walking  in  his  leisurely  fashion  toward  the 
trolley  terminus,  swinging  his  umbrella.  The 
golden  light  enfolded  him  and  the  scarlet 
maples  bent  down  in  benediction. 

THE    END 


prcs* 

CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .    S    .   A 


